Pancreas: Biliary Tree – Pancreas and Spleen

00:01 So if we look at the pancreas and now look it through the prism of the biliary tree and the gallbladder that we've mentioned before.

00:09 Then what you can remember is that we have got our gallbladder here.

00:13 We can see our gallbladder, we got our fundus, we got our body and we got our neck. And we got our cystic duct here.

00:20 But here we have also got our two hepatic ducts that formed the common hepatic duct.

00:27 The union of the common hepatic duct and the cystic duct forms the bile duct.

00:35 The bile duct is then going to run within the portal triad.

00:38 It runs within the portal triad, is going to run posterior to the duodenum.

00:46 It then runs along the posterior surface of the head of the pancreas.

00:51 So the bile duct then unites with the main pancreatic duct.

01:00 Running from the tail of the pancreas and then dipping down through the uncinate process we have the main pancreatic duct.

01:10 The main pancreatic duct, which we can see here as well, is also then going to combine with the bile duct, which we can just pick out here. These dotted line indicate its running posterior, okay? But the bile duct would be coming in this direction.

01:26 Bile duct runs posterior to the duodenum, posterior to the head of the pancreas and unite with the bile duct. And where the main pancreatic duct and the bile duct unites we find we have the hepatopancreatic ampulla.

01:42 The hepatopancreatic ampulla is this dilation. And the dilation is surrounded by a sphincter, a smooth muscle sphincter known as the hepatopancreatic sphincter.

01:52 And this is controlled by the autonomic nervous system.

01:56 It’s controlled by the autonomic nervous system. And that can regulate the activity of the sphincter.

02:02 So when the sphincter relaxes, the pancreatic juice and the bile compass through the major duodenal papilla which we can see here and support the digestion.

02:16 Bile can emulsify the fats and the pancreatic juice can help to break down the ingested food.

02:22 We also have the minor duodenal papilla which is slightly superior and that is the opening for the accessory pancreatic duct. And that doesn't receive any input from the bile duct.

02:35 So the biliary tree is rightly important for the bile and pancreatic juice entering into the digestive system at the level of the descending parts of the duodenum.