484.A 22-year-old man who belongs to a weekend football league pre-
sents in the ER. He was running with the ball when a defender tackled him
in the midthigh. The patient reports that when he got up, his thigh hurt, so
he sat out the rest of the game. When walking to the car, his posterior thigh
was extremely painful and swollen. After his shower, he noticed it was
becoming discolored with increased swelling. You are concerned about the
presence of a hematoma and a disruption of the arterial blood flow to the
hamstring muscles. An arteriogram is performed and the vessels in question
(arrows) show good filling by contrast. These blood vessels are which of
the following?
578 Anatomy, Histology, and Cell Biology
a. Descending branches of the inferior gluteal artery
b. Perforating branches of the deep femoral artery
c. Perforating branches from the obturator artery
d. Perforating branches of the femoral artery