What Does The Liver Look Like?
The liver is reddish brown in colour. It has the consistency of foam rubber when healthy. In a child with liver disease, it is often firmer. In an adult, it is roughly the size of a rugby ball.The liver has two main parts called the right and left lobes. There are over 300 billion specialised cells in the liver. These cells are served by a well organised intricate system of bile ducts and blood vessels. The bile ducts, which drain every liver cell, join like tributaries entering a stream, to form one main bile duct from each lobe. These join together to form the common hepatic duct.
The common hepatic duct in turn joins with the duct from the gall bladder (called the cystic duct) to form the common bile duct. The common bile duct leads into the duodenum through the ampulla of vater.
The gall bladder is a pear-shaped organ which rests in a shallow furrow in the right lobe of the liver. The narrow end of the gall bladder, called the neck, opens into the cystic duct. The gall bladder collects the bile, produced by the liver, concentrates it and passes into the duodenum following a meal. The concentration process is not essential and digestion is rarely affected by removal of the gall bladder.
The blood supply to and from the liver
The liver is a unique organ with a dual blood supply. Blood enters the live by two separate routes:
- The hepatic artery which brings freshly oxygenated blood to the liver. Within the liver, the artery divides into fine branches which supply blood to the fine bile ducts.
- The portal vein which carries blood containing nutrients from the stomach and intestine to the liver. The portal vein also carries blood from the spleen.
The blood leaves the liver by the hepatic vein and returns to the heart.
The development of the liver
The liver is first seen in the developing embryo at four weeks of pregnancy. As the foetus develops, the liver is divided into two forming the right and left lobes. The right lobe is six times bigger than the left. By the time the baby is born, the liver constitutes about 5% of the baby's body weight and grows with the baby. In the adult the liver weighs about 1.5kg.
Source:
Children's Liver Foundation http://www.childliverdisease.org
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