Where lymph meets the blood
The thoracic duct empties at the left venous angle. On the right, a right lymphatic duct about a centimetre long, often split into separate trunks, ends at the right venous angle. It drains the right side of the head and neck, the right arm and the right half of the chest, one quarter of the body.
Three forms of the lymph trunks at the right venous angle: they enter the veins one by one or join first in a short right lymphatic duct, Gray's Anatomy, 1918, figure 601Wikimedia Commons, Henry Vandyke Carter, Public domain (Gray601.png)
From the angles the lymph flows on with the venous blood through the brachiocephalic veins and the superior vena cava into the right atrium. The pressure in these veins is close to zero, which lets the lymph drain in.
Sources
- Susan Standring (ed.), Gray's Anatomy, 42nd ed. (2020), chapters on the neck and the mediastinum.
- Arthur Guyton and John Hall, Textbook of Medical Physiology, 13th ed. (2016), ch. 15 and 16.
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