The pancreas is an important organ in the practice of gastroenterology, as emphasized in this issue of VHJOE

It is important to understand the regional anatomy of the pancreas to better assess pancreatic diseases and to interpret diagnostic images of the pancreas. For instance, figure 1 shows an abdominal CT image of a patient with calcific chronic pancreatitis. Readers familiar with the anatomy of that region would have a much easier time identifying the abnormalities shown.

This issue’s Visible Human movie shows images of the pancreas taken obliquely between the coronal, sagital and axial planes (Video 1). This is very similar to the views obtained during radial array EUS of the pancreas from the stomach. The body of the pancreas and it’s relation to the splenic vein are clearly shown in this film clip. Figure 2 and 3 show labeled images from the Visible Human dataset to help one get oriented to the video. EUS images in this orientation are useful in demonstrating criteria for chronic pancreatitis as described in the article by Drs Noh and Wallace.
(See the related article by Dr. Wallace and Dr. Noh in this issue)

A link has been provided to the Visible Human dataset for those readers who are interested in exploring the interactive anatomy of the pancreas.

Figure 1	Figure 2	Figure 3

Video Clip 1: Visible Human images of the pancreas taken obliquely between the coronal, sagital and axial planes Larger Versions: Low Resolution (261 KB) High Resolution (2.1 MB)	Figure 4: Click here to launch Interactive Atlas