On the Development of Fundic and Pyloric Glands

Abstract

I n t r o d u c t i o n .The fundus and pylorus area varies as to its limits in the stomach of adults. Macroscopically the fields of the fundus region are very regular, smaller and more rectangular than in the pylorus region. The corresponding formations of the pylorus, the fields, vary more in size ( 1 to 2 mm in diameter), and are longer. Paschkis and Orator state that the area of the fundic glands reaches to the angle on thc lesser curvature, and on the greater curvature farther to the pylorus region sometimes as far as near the pylorus. The limit between the regions of the fundic and pyloric glands thus runs from the angle on the lesser curvature diagonally in the direction of the pylorus to the greater curvature. In a stomach opened from the greater curvature, the area of the pyloric glands is triangular, the apex being in the angle of the lesser curvature and the base following the direction of the pylorus line. These authors point out that the limits of both types of glands vary to a considerable extent. Thus, in one third of the cases investigated by them, the width of the transitional area was 2 to 5 mm. Bailey's textbook states that the transition from fundus to pylorus is not abrupt, but is marked by a ,transitional border zonecc in which fundic and pyloric glands intermingle, and in which are also found single glands which resemble in structure both fundus and pylorus. In Mollendorf's textbook Plenk gives the width of the transitional zone in adults as about 1 cm on the lesser curvature (Miyagawu 1921), on the greater curvature (Jouvenel 1906) about 65 mm. W. Krause calls glands in this area of transition ,compound gastric glandsu. According to Saltzman the limit of the mucous membrane of the fundus and the pylorus is not abrupt, but the fundic and pyloric glands intermingle in an area of varying width. Neither do the separate glandular parts i n the glandular tubule seem to be unmixed but contain parts of pyloric as well as of fundic glands.