Master the Intensive Care Medicine Challenge 2025 – Elevate Your Expertise and Save Lives!

The correct answer is the pulmonary arteries because they are specifically responsible for transporting deoxygenated blood away from the right side of the heart to the lungs. In the pulmonary circulation, the right ventricle pumps the blood into the pulmonary arteries, which then branch into the smaller arteries and arterioles within the lungs. This is where carbon dioxide is exchanged for oxygen, allowing for the oxygenation of the blood, which is a critical function in respiratory physiology.

In contrast, the pulmonary veins return oxygenated blood from the lungs back to the left side of the heart; therefore, they do not supply blood to the lungs but rather carry blood away from them. The systemic arteries carry oxygen-rich blood from the left side of the heart to the rest of the body, whereas systemic veins return deoxygenated blood from the body back to the right side of the heart. Thus, the functionality and directionality of blood flow determine the roles of these vessels in the circulatory system, with the pulmonary arteries being the key vessels involved in delivering blood to the lungs for oxygenation.