Biliary Tract And Liver Imaging

The human body consists of many complicated systems that carry out various tasks for the body. A few organs make up a system. For example, the nervous system comprises the brain, the spinal cord, and nerve cells. The urinary system comprises a pair of kidneys and the urethra. Similarly, the biliary tract is a system that consists of the liver, bile ducts, and gallbladder. They help in storing and secretion of the bile juice. Understanding the liver structure and detecting biliary tract diseases requires liver imaging tests.

Biliary tract

The biliary tract is also called the biliary system or the biliary tree. It consists of three main organs: the gallbladder, the bike ducts, and the liver. They work together to secrete the bile juice and store it. Bile juice is made up of the following constituents.

• Water
• Bile acids
• cholesterol
• electrolytes
• conjugated bilirubin

Some of these components are synthesized by the liver cells, while the others are extracted from the blood by the liver. The liver imaging tests help us understand the structure of this liver and the biliary tract.

Structure of biliary tract

The biliary tract is the path through which mobile juice, which the liver secretes, gets transported to the first component of the small intestine.

The biliary tract is found among most mammals and is called a tree as it starts with many little branches and ends up in the common bile duct. The flow of the fire juice is opposite to that of the blood in the hepatic artery and the portal vein.

This system is collectively referred to as the biliary tract, and together they secret and store the bile juice. This structure can be studied in detail with the help of liver imaging tests.

The biliary tract is as follows.

The bile canaliculi go to the canal of Herring up to the right and the left hepatic ducts. Both of these together form the common hepatic duct. The duct then exits from the liver and joins the cystic duct from the gallbladder. Then the duct formed will further join the pancreatic duct. 

Biliary tract functions 

The members of the biliary tract together produce and store the bile juice. The very juicy is secreted between the means and stored in the gallbladder. Here most of the electrolytes and water can be absorbed. During a meal, the muscles from the gallbladder wall, which are smooth, will contract, and bile juice will be secreted in the small intestine.

The juice helps absorb oils and dietary fats by using bile acids to solubilize them.

Liver imaging tests

Following are the various tests used for biliary tract and liver imaging.

Ultrasonography:

It is done trans abdominally and requires the patient to fast sometime before the Imaging. It uses structural information about the liver and biliary tract but not the functional. However, it Is the most sensitive and safest among liver imaging tests. It is also quite cheap. 

But ultrasonography can be difficult to conduct in patients with intestinal gas or obesity.

The ultrasound elastography type of liver Imaging tests can help measure liver stiffness. This technique is used fully for patients with chronic hepatitis C.

The Doppler ultrasonography

This is one of the liver imaging tests which is non-invasive. It analyzes the direction of the blood flow and the pattern of blood vessels that surround the liver. It helps in the assessment of tumour vascularity before conducting surgery on it. The unusual structures present in the liver and the biliary tracts could also be detected with the help of the doppler ultrasonography. The patency of liver shunts can also be assessed with this technique of liver imaging tests.

MRI liver imaging:

Magnetic Resonance Imaging is used to get the images of ducts, the blood vessels, and the hepatic tissues. Diffuse liver disorders are better diagnosed with the help of MRI rather than ultrasonography and CT scan. It is also more sensitive than CT scans and ultrasonography.

Such are the liver imaging tests.

Conclusion:

The biliary tract, which is, to a lot of mammals, is a system that consists of the liver, bile ducts, and the gallbladder in humans. It helps in the synthesis and storage of bile juice. Bile juice helps in the absorption of oils and dietary fats. The liver imaging tests used to get liver and bile tract images include ultrasonography, Doppler ultrasonography, CT scan, etc. The ultrasonography is the most sensitive and safest technique for the Imaging of the biliary system. Doppler ultrasonography assesses the direction of the flow of the blood.