The body and tail blood supply of the human pancreas

Abstract

Introduction. In the last decade the pancreas surgery has undergone considerable development, connected with the introduction of modern interventional procedures for treatment tumors and acute pancreatitis. There are carried out active studies of the risks elimination while transplanting the pancreas, its success considerably depends on the surgeon’s knowledge of the variant anatomy of this organ.The aim of this study is to show on corrosive preparations the main features of intraorganic arterial blood supply of the human pancreas body and tail.Materials and methods. The investigation was made on 40 specimens of the human pancreas: 17 – corrosive preparations, 23 – fixed preparations of the pancreas with the parenchyma dissection. Pancreatic vessels were filled with latex of different colors to verify arteries and veins. The preparations were fixed in 10 % acid formalin for a week. After this period, a part of the preparations was dissected, another part was immersed in alkaline solution to obtain corrosive casts of vessels.Results. The greatest number of cases of the gland vascularization (50.0 %) was of type II, which was characterized by mixed presence of long and short branches of the splenic artery in the arterial blood supply of the gland parenchyma. The variant with predominance of short branches (Type I) was the second most frequent (32.5 %). The variant with predominance of blood supply of the gland only due to long branches (Type III) was observed less frequently, in 17 % of cases. In the majority of cases there were numerous arterial anastomoses in the form of arcades in the gland parenchyma (88,2 % of cases). They usually continue large branches of the splenic artery (dorsal pancreatic artery and large pancreatic artery), whereas short branches usually supply only a small part of the gland.Conclusion. The human pancreas has a marked anatomical variability of its arterial blood supply. The investigation showed that in most cases its parenchyma is vascularized by short and long branches of the splenic artery forming arcade-type anastomoses. In a several cases there was found a variant of blood supply with predominance of short branches dividing the gland into separate sections. The type of blood supply of the gland body and tail with predominance of long branches was found less often.