Horseshoe pancreas

Last revised by Mostafa Elfeky on 11 Aug 2022

A horseshoe pancreas is a term that has been used for a rare anatomic variant of the pancreas in which the uncinate process is unusually elongated such that it extends along the whole 3rd part of the duodenum to mirror the tail superiorly forming a horseshoe-shaped gland 1.

History and etymology

The term has been used historically in nuclear medicine to refer to the appearance of some pancreatic anomalies on selenium-75 selenomethionine scanning 3.

It has also been used in the past to refer to certain morphologies of the pancreatic ductal system 4.

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