Inguinal canal and its anatomical features

The inguinal canal is a kind of cleft located in the lower abdominal wall, namely above the inguinal ligament. In men, it contains a spermatic cord, and in women it has a round ligament in the uterus. The direction of the channel is necessarily oblique. Above the pubic bone, namely above its section of the upper branch is a superficial groin ring. A little lower - the inguinal ring is deep. And between them the inguinal canal lies obliquely laterally.

The inguinal canal, the anatomy of which is quite complicated, has such walls as anterior (aponeurosis of oblique external abdominal muscle) and posterior (transverse fascia of the abdomen), and lower (groin groove) and upper (lower edge of oblique inner muscle and lower edge of transverse abdominal muscle ).

The length of the inguinal canal does not exceed five centimeters. In the abdominal cavity near this channel there is an internal inguinal ring (deep), located above the inguinal ligament at a distance of two centimeters approximately from the middle of this ligament. In that place, namely in a peculiar gap, where the fibers of the external oblique muscle of the abdominal cavity diverge, an inguinal ring is superficial. It is called so because of the fact that it is located above the inguinal ligament, and more precisely, over its medial part.

The slightly curved edge of the aponeurosis of the oblique external muscle of the abdominal cavity is an inguinal ligament that serves as a connective tissue for the oblique abdominal muscle and transverse fascia of the abdomen. It forms the lower channel wall.

The aponeurosis of the external oblique muscle, which very often limits the front wall, is not a compact plate at all, but a mesh plate. But the upper wall is formed by several lower edges of the transverse and internal oblique muscles of the abdominal cavity.

Starting at the bottom of the oblique inner muscle, a small, defined muscle bundle separates the men, forming a muscle such as a testicle lifter. It reaches the testicle itself, leaving the inguinal canal through an available external opening. The posterior wall, which is formed by the transverse fascia of the abdominal cavity, fuses with the inguinal ligament, not even with the ligament itself, but with its posterior margin.

The superficial ring of the groin, located above the inguinal ligament, is an oval hole and is rather limited due to the divergence of the tendon by two legs: lateral and medial. The first of them grew to the pubic tubercle, and the second to the symphysis, the left one in front of the right one. This means that the further it is from the symphysis, the groin canal (its orifice) will be wider.

Only thanks to this feature is it possible to determine the predisposition to the onset and development of inguinal hernias. Of course, it's pretty easy to determine by X-ray. On the lateral side, the slit is strengthened by fibers that connect the tissue between the legs of the inguinal ring.

A hole that does not have any deviations from the norm should allow the tip of the little finger to pass through. At larger sizes, it is estimated as an extended one. This hole is easily examined by inspection. If the little finger (its tip) protrude the skin of the scrotum upward, and then laterally, it is quite realistic to probe the entrance directly into the inguinal canal, the walls of which are in normal healthy condition always in a tonus.

The deep groin ring is slightly higher from the middle of the inguinal ligament by about 1 centimeter. It has a free hole, because it contains the intra-vaginal transverse fascia of the abdomen. It is located around or a spermatic cord (in men), or around a ligament of a uterus of the round form (at women).

It is through this channel that when a congenital inguinal hernia (oblique) occurs, all its contents descend into the scrotum, which leads to undesirable consequences.