Hi let's talk about the structures of the liver and the gallbladder. So here we're looking at an
anterior view of the abdominal cavity. We can see the the diaphragm separating the abdominal cavity
from the thoracic cavity, we can see here that the liver is being retracted up and away and
this gives us a view of several of the the main targets of our investigation in this session.
So here in the epigastric and right hypochondriac region is the liver. We can also see in close
association with the visceral surface of the liver the gallbladder, we can see the stomach here
it's the greater curvature and that would be the
lesser curvature. And in the left hypochondriac region we can see the spleen.
Turning our attention to the liver in particular this view that we have here on
the right is quite similar to what we've seen. This is another anterior view and here we can see the
right lobe of the liver which is the most dominant and there's the left lobe of the liver.
Along here this is the round ligament of the liver,
so ligamentum teres hepatis.
And then in association with the round ligament here we have the falciform ligament
from the previous session.
The falciform ligament and the round ligament are very closely allied with one another.
Over to the left here we have a view of the visceral surface of the liver this would be
posterior and I can tell posterior from anterior because there's this
concave surface to it. So with respect to this view we can see still the rather large right lobe
and large left lobe and we can also see posteriorly the caudate lobe and although
it's somewhat obscured here by this gallbladder we can see the quadrate lobe there, so the anterior
lobe there is the quadrate and the posterior is the caudate, caudal means tail and there
is a caudate process of that caudate lobe there. Now looking at the liver you know that there are
various sides to the liver, five of them to be precise. The major surfaces
however are the diaphragmatic surface, the diaphragmatic surface is everything that is
in communication with the the diaphragm, we've got some anterior surface there, and kind of obscured
from view but we can see a little bit of it there is the visceral surface. So diaphragmatic surface
you don't have to be aware of the anterior surface there that's just a bonus and then
the visceral surface is deep there. Now again I would turn your attention to this round ligament
it's out of place it would be heading down towards the umbilicus in a
typical position and it's heading up towards a fissure for the round ligament.
And then here tucked away on the visceral surface is the gallbladder.
Gallbladder here is its typical dark green shade, it's stained green from
the biliverdin which is the oxidized form of bilirubin, those are the two pigments of bile.
We're looking again at the the visceral surface of the liver. Again I can tell that because the
concave border is there so that would be
posteriorly so there's our right lobe our left lobe our quadrate lobe and our caudate lobe.
And nestled right in here is a very special region called the porta hepatis.
That porta hepatis is transmitting some very important vasculature for the liver.
So right there and right there this is the left branch of the hepatic artery proper,
that's the right branch of the hepatic artery proper, here we have the hepatic portal vein,
and there is the common hepatic duct, which is a portion of the biliary tree. While the
round ligament has been removed the fissure for the round ligament
is there so it would continue up through there towards the porta hepatis and in the same sort
of continuity of plane kind of insinuating between the left lobe and the caudate lobe is the fissure
for the ligamentum venosum.
That ligamentum venosum is the remnant of the ductus venosus which
is a shunt from the umbilical vein up to the inferior vena cava
within the fetus. So that's going to deliver oxygen rich blood bypassing
liver circulation directly to the inferior vena cava up to the heart of the fetus.
We can't see much of it but we can see a little bit there if this were a specimen
I'd recommend reflecting the caudate lobe from the left lobe there
to see the ligamentum venosum within that fissure for the ligamentum venosum.
And now finally let's take a look at the major contents of the hepatoduodenal ligament.
The hepatoduodenal ligament is the minor portion of the lesser momentum.
The lesser momentum if you recall runs between the stomach and duodenum and the
liver, so there's the hepatogastric ligament between the liver and the stomach and then the
hepatoduodenal ligament between the liver and the duodenum. So the stomach on the right here has been
removed but I'll just kind of highlight the region that we're looking at there. We can see the the
fissure for the round ligament there, I can see the gallbladder, there there's the falciform ligament,
and within this so coming up, here let me color code this for your enjoyment, here's the
hepatic portal system. So here's the splenic vein, here is the superior mesenteric vein,
and they're coming together just posterior to the neck of the pancreas to form the hepatic
portal vein. So that portal vein is one of three major contents of the hepatoduodenal ligament.
Another major content of the hepatic duodenal ligament is the hepatic artery proper. That hepatic
artery proper is going to branch into right and left hepatic branches and we're going to have
the cystic artery coming off, typically that right hepatic branch. And then finally
last but not least, we can go back to green here I suppose, is going to be the common bile duct.
The common bile duct comes up and at this point it's going to receive the cystic duct
and the common hepatic duct. So we have common bile duct,
hepatic artery proper, and the hepatic portal vein, all within the hepatoduodenal ligament. So
we've discussed the liver the gallbladder and some of the features therein. Thank you very much for