Ducts

• The ducts transport the acinar cell secretions to the duodenum. The ductal epithelium cells secrete water, chloride, and bicarbonate to buffer the acidity of the pancreatic juices and stabilize the pro enzymes until activation in the duodenum.

• The Ductal system has five portion

1. Centroacinar cells
2. interacleted ducts
3. intralobular ducts
4. interlobular ducts
5. main ducts

• The duct system starts with the centraciner cells, which are flat to cuboidal cells located in the middle of the acini. The lumen surrounding the acini and the centroacinar cells drains into the intercleted ducts (smallest) just outside the acini. These ducts fuse to form the intralobular ducts neither of these ducts have a significant collagenous matrix around them. Once the ducts leave the lobules they become surrounded by a thick rim of collagen they are now termed the intralobular ducts. The cells of the intralobuler and the interacleted ducts resemble centoacinar cells but are slightly different in their granule constituents, the transition of cells types can not be seen. The main pancreatic duct receives tributaries from the interlobular ducts, the lining epithelium of these ducts is flat except in the distal portion were papillae are found. The Cells of these larger ducts are low columnar with basal round nuclei, special stains are needed to see mucin in these ducts.
• Cells starting from the small interlobular ducts may have cilia that function to mix the pancreatic juices (Mills ET AL 2007).