The groin
A chain of superficial nodes lies just under the skin, along the crease of the groin and around the top of the great saphenous vein. They drain the skin of the whole leg, the buttock, the belly wall below the navel and the genitals. One to three deep nodes sit on the inner side of the femoral vein.
The superficial lymph vessels of the leg climbing beside the great saphenous vein to the superficial inguinal nodes, Gray's Anatomy, 1918, figure 610Wikimedia Commons, Henry Vandyke Carter, Public domain (Gray610.png)
From the groin the lymph climbs along the external iliac vein and artery to nodes in the pelvis, then to nodes beside the aorta and on to the cisterna chyli. The testis drains straight to the nodes beside the aorta, the place it left before birth on its way down to the scrotum.
Sources
- Susan Standring (ed.), Gray's Anatomy, 42nd ed. (2020), chapter on the pelvic girdle, hip, gluteal region and thigh.
- Henry Gray, Anatomy of the Human Body, 20th ed. (1918), section VIII, The Lymphatics of the Lower Extremity.
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