Responses of the splanchnic circulation to ischaemia.

Abstract

The distribution of the cardiac output is conventionally shared between six major circulatory components, that is, to the brain, heart, kidneys, bone and skeletal muscle, skin and viscera. This last comprises the splanchnic circulation, which arrives through the three great visceral arteries (coeliac axis, superior and inferior mesenteric artery) and is drained, via the liver, into the hepatic veins. The organs supplied include the liver, spleen and pancreas, stomach, duodenum and small and large intestine. In practice, the one area in which deprivation of blood supply carries important physiological consequences is the alimentary tract, because the other territories are irrigated by a double circulation. This chapter will, therefore, be mainly concerned with events in the mesenteric circulation.