Common bile duct
gastrointestinal duct
The common bile duct (also bile duct) is a part of the biliary tract. It is formed by the union of the common hepatic duct and cystic duct. It ends by uniting with the pancreatic duct to form the ampulla of Vater (hepatopancreatic ampulla). Its sphincter the sphincter of Oddi, enables the regulation of bile flow.
Anatomy
The bile duct is some 6–8 cm long, and normally up to 8 mm in diameter.
Its proximal supraduodenal part is situated within the free edge of the lesser omentum. Its middle retroduodenal part is oriented inferiorly and right-ward, and is situated posterior to the first part of the duodenum, and anterior to the inferior vena cava. Its distal paraduodenal part is oriented still more right-ward, is accommodated by a groove upon (sometimes a channel within) the posterior aspect of the head of the pancreas, and is situated anterior to the right renal vein.
The bile duct terminates by uniting with the pancreatic duct (at an angle of about 60°) to form the Ampulla of Vater (hepatopancreatic ampulla).
The distal extremity of the bile duct invariably features its own sphincter (the pancreatic duct and the Ampulla of Vater usually possess sphincters of their own to allow the flow of pancreatic juice to be regulated independently, however, these two can be absent).
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This entry incorporates text from “Common bile duct” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.