Anatomy of the Gallbladder and Bile Ducts (Nursing)

00:01 Now let's shift from our thoughts on the vascular supply to the bile.

00:07 So again, bile is one of the many things that the liver does.

00:10 It produces this substance that helps in the digestion of fats.

00:15 And it's starting at a very cellular level very microscopically, but eventually it's coalescing into bile ducts.

00:23 And throughout the liver, there are a lot of intrahepatic bile ducts.

00:28 And that just means those are the small bile ducts inside the liver itself.

00:33 Eventually, they'll merge to form the extra hepatic bile ducts are the ones that are outside of the liver.

00:41 And then the gallbladder essentially serves as a reserve.

00:46 And that's a spot where bile can be stored and concentrated, and therefore can be called upon during, for example, a fatty meal.

00:57 So this end part of the gallbladder that's sort of like a blind cap is a fundus than the majority of the gallbladder is the body and then it narrows at the neck.

01:13 After the gallbladder, it forms a duct called the cystic duct.

01:18 Cystic in this area of the body refers to the gallbladder.

01:24 So for example, you might hear the term cholecystitis will cholecyst refers to gall bladders, just some synonyms for the gallbladder.

01:33 We also have the right and left hepatic ducts, draining all of the intrahepatic ducts within the liver itself.

01:42 And then they merged to form the common hepatic duct, which exits the liver and merges with the cystic duct to form the bile duct or sometimes called the common bile duct.

01:58 We also see that by the level of the bile duct, we're getting pretty close to another organ of accessory digestion called the pancreas.

02:08 And the pancreas is going to have its own duct system.

02:12 So here we see the pancreatic duct.

02:16 And there's also a smaller accessory pancreatic duct.

02:21 But it's the pancreatic duct or the main one that's merging with the bile duct at something called the hepatopancreatic ampulla.

02:31 And that name is very descriptive, but you'll probably hear the eponym ampulla of vater because that's pretty commonly used.

02:40 And they are sharing this space to enter into the small intestine at the duodenum, and a little bump called the major duodenal papilla.

02:52 So let's look at that in a little closer detail.

02:55 So here we have the superior part of the duodenum that's been sort of removed so we can see the structures deep to it and that includes the bile duct which is passing posterior to this proximal duodenum distal stomach area.

03:12 We also have the portal vein, again, carrying all that good venous blood from the intestines up towards the liver.

03:20 And then we have the hepatic artery proper, which is actually carrying the regular oxygenated blood to the liver.

03:27 And together those three things form what's called the portal triad.

03:31 And we can see this with the naked eye.

03:33 So this is something that is part of gross anatomy, but they're going to form smaller and smaller branches all the way down to the microscopic level inside the liver as well.

03:42 And they're going to form at the edge of this other fold, called the lesser omentum that connects the liver to the lesser curvature of the stomach.