It is a very complex organ with multiple functions essential for life. It is the largest visor, weighs approximately 1,500 grams and is hard in consistency and reddish in color. Its location is below the diagram and normally only protrudes from the thorax in the midline, between the two costal arches. It has two faces; the upper one convex and smooth, and the posterior or visceral, which is slightly concave, this side being where all the vessels, conductors, and nerve fillets of this important organ exit.
If it can be seen from a microscope, its constitution is of functional units called lobules, which are small blocks of liver tissue arranged around a central vein. And it can be seen that between the unions of three lobules a space called the portal is formed, which is in turn composed of a branch of the hepatic artery, one of the portal vein, a bile duct and lymphatic vessels. Cords of liver cells emerge from the lobule, making a tubular space that does not have its own wall, the bile duct, which drains bile into the gallbladder and bile duct. The liver is entirely surrounded by a fibrous covering or Glisson's capsule.
This visceral organ has the following functions: secretion of bile this action is important and essential to be able to absorb fat; stores of glycogens, vitamins and proteins; involved in lipid metabolism; protein synthesis and conversion of toxic substances. The liver has dual circulation; one is in the hepatic artery and the other is in the portal vein system, which carries venous blood collected from the digestive tract.
It has bile ducts, which are the excretory routes of this organ; the hepatic duct that is formed by the union of three bile ducts, the gallbladder; which is where the bile located in the visceral face of the liver is reserved, having a capacity of 50-60 cubic centimeters, the cystic duct; It is the one that continues the gallbladder, leading to the hepatic duct, the common bile duct; which is the union of the hepatic and cystic ducts, lead to the ampulla of the toilet in the duodenum.
