Abstract
The accessory pancreatic duct(APD)shows two different patterns in pancreatograms;long and short type. The APD of the long type forms a straight line and joins the mainpancreatic duct(MPD)at the neck of the pancreas. The APD of the short type conveys tothe MPD near its first inferior branch. We examined 161 endoscopic retrograde pancreatograms on the inferior branches from the APD. Long inferior branches over 20mm in lengthwere demonstrated in 74.6% of 118 APD of the long type, significantly more frequent than30.2% of 43 APD of the short type(P<0.01). Short inferior branches between 10mm and19mm in length were seen in 51.7% of APD of the long type and 60.5% of APD of the shorttype. There were no differences in the regions of inferior branches arising from the APD. It was suggested that a part of the APD of the short type might be the inferior branchfrom the main duct of the dorsal pancreatic primordiurn embryologically, because the caseswith bong inferior branches were zess frequent.
