Morphological and morphometrical study of liver and gall bladder development in sheep fetus

Liver is the largest gland of body and its size reflects the multiplicity of its function such as bile secretion , storage of glycogen and hematopoiesis in embryonic life. In fetus, the liver occupies a considerable portion of the abdominal cavity. Gall bladder is the pear–shaped structure which lies on the visceral surface of the liver. Since there is no macroscopic study on morphology and morphometry of the liver and gall bladder in sheep fetus, this study was performed to determine morphologic, morphometric and topographic specifications of liver and gall bladder in sheep fetuses with different ages. To this object, 60 sheep fetuses were collected from slaughterhouse and fixed in 10% formalin solution and divided into four groups according to their crown-rump length (CRL). Minimum and maximum fetal CRL were 3.5 and 48.5 cm. After determining of fetal body weight and their sexuality, abdominal cavity was opened. Then the liver was removed from abdominal cavity and fetal morphologic and morphometric specifications were studied. Results showed that lobation of liver and presence of gall bladder were detectable from the 53 day-old fetus and gall bllader was descended from ventral border of liver in the fetus with age of 88 days. Topogaraphic position of liver included less intercostal spaces with increase in fetal age. In morphometric study, the left lobe had the maximum length in milimeter in the first (28.84± 7.6)and second (40.6 ± 8.27) groups and the right lobe had the maximum length in the third(46.8 ± 7.88) and fourth (52.46 ± 9.66) groups. In all groups maximum width and thickness was seen in the left lobe. Also, there was a direct correlation between fetal age and liver weight, length, width and thickness, so that anatomical specifications of the liver increased with age.