Anatomy study note · Abdomen

Transverse colon

About 38 cm long, it hangs across the abdomen from the right colic flexure to the higher left colic (splenic) flexure, suspended from the pancreas by the transverse mesocolon.

Key points

• Mobile, on the transverse mesocolon.
• Midgut/hindgut boundary at the junction of its middle and left thirds.
• Middle colic (SMA) + left colic (IMA).
• Splenic flexure higher than the hepatic flexure.
• Right ⅔ midgut (SMA), left ⅓ hindgut (IMA).
• Appendices epiploicae.
• Colon: no villi, many goblet cells.

The full note in the atlas also covers

Relations · Features · Blood supply · Nerve supply · Lymph drainage · Histology · Development · Clinical notes

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Written from

• Snell’s Clinical Anatomy by Regions, 10th ed., ch. 7, PDF pp. 867–870, 877–878
• Inderbir Singh’s Human Embryology, ch. 13, PDF pp. 179, 184, 186–187
• BRS Cell Biology & Histology, 7th ed., ch. 16, PDF pp. 296–297, 297

More from the abdomen

• Transversus abdominis
• Umbilical cord
• Ureter
• Vas deferens
• Abdominal aorta
• Abdominal lymph nodes
• Appendix
• Ascending colon
• Biliary tree
• Caecum
• Coeliac trunk
• Descending colon

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