Venous angioarchitecture of the tunica muscularis in the esophagogastric transition segment in man

Abstract

With the purpose of studying the venous angioarchitecture of the esophagogastric transition segment (EGTS), 30 speciments were obtained from bodies a few hours after death. These specimens were injected with a 25% aqueous solution of india ink (drop-by-drop continuous infusion) through the left gastric vein and the splenic vein. The specimens thus prepared underwent three types of methods: (1) clarification by the Spalteholz method for a panoramic stereoscopic observation of the venous angioarchitecture; (2) thick sections in a series from 100 to 150 micrometer, stained by the Azan method, and (3) in 10-micrometer serial sections stained by the method of Masson, the perimeter of the veins having been measured in order to ascertain the venous density. The result of this investigation allows the conclusion that there are three venous nets in the muscular layer of the EGTS (perimuscular, intermuscular and submuscular). These three nets, especially the intermuscular and the perimuscular, converge at the extremities of the EGTS, most markedly in the cranial part, to large confluent trunks, going out of the organ from there through perforating trunks principally to the affluents of the portal vein. It thus constitutes a more or less independent segment under the venous point of view, depending essentially on the system of that vein. A marked predominance of perforating vasa of the false type in zone 3, especially at its intermediate part exactly at the stretch where most part of the veins of the mucous-submucous system lie at a deeper site, together with other peculiarities of venous distribution of this region, allows the morphofunctional deduction that, at this point, the muscular layer be a barrier between the deep and the peripheral venous circulation of the esophagus.