Pancreas

Definition: Pancreas

Pancreas

Noun

1. A large elongated exocrine gland located behind the stomach; secretes pancreatic juice and insulin.

Date "pancreas" was first used: 1578. (references)

Specialty Definitions: Pancreas

Domain	Definitions
Health	A mixed exocrine and endocrine gland situated transversely across the posterior abdominal wall in the epigastric and hypochondriac regions. The endocrine portion is comprised of the Islets of Langerhans, while the exocrine portion is a compound acinar gland that secretes digestive enzymes. (references)
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

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Specialty Definition: Pancreas

(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)

The pancreas is a retroperitoneal organ that that serves two functions:

exocrine - it produces pancreatic juice containing digestive enzymes
endocrine - it produces several important hormones

Anatomy

The pancreas is a retroperitoneal organ located posterior to the stomach on the posterior abdominal wall.

In humans the pancreas is a small elongated organ in the abdomen. It is described as having a head, body and tail. The pancreatic head abuts the second part of the duodenum while the tail extends towards the spleen. The pancreatic duct runs the length of the pancreas and empties into the second part of the duodenum at the ampulla of Vater. The common bile duct commonly joins the pancreatic duct at or near this point.

It is supplied arterially by the pancreaticoduodenal arteries, themselves branches of the superior mesenteric artery. Venous drainage is via the pancreaticoduodenal veins which end up in the portal vein. The splenic vein passes posterior to the pancreas but is said to not drain the pancreas itself. The portal vein is formed by the union of the superior mesenteric vein and splenic vein posterior to the body of the pancreas. In some people (some books say 40% of people), the inferior mesenteric vein also joins with the splenic vein behind the pancreas (in others it simply joins with the superior mesenteric vein instead).

Function

Exocrine

The pancreas is covered in a tissue capsule that partitions the gland into lobules. The bulk of the pancreas is composed of pancreatic exocrine cells, whose ducts are arranged in clusters called acini (singular acinus). The cells are filled with secretory granules containing the digestive enzymes (mainly trypsin, chymotrypsin, pancreatic lipase, and amylase) that are secreted into the lumen of the acinus.

The pancreas is the main source of enzymes for digesting fats (lipids) and proteins - the intestinal walls have enzymes that will digest polysaccharides. Pancreatic secretions contain bicarbonate ions and are alkaline in order to neutralize the acidic chyme that the stomach churns out.

Control of the exocrine function of the pancreas are via the enzymes gastrin, cholecystokinin and secretin, which are enzymes secreted by cells in the stomach and duodenum, in response to distension and/or food and which cause secretion of pancreatic juices.

The two major proteases the pancreas excretes are trypsinogen and chymotrypsinogen. These are inactivated forms of trypsin and chymotrypsin. Once released in the intestine, the enzyme enterokinase present in the intestinal mucosa activates trypsinogen by cleaving it to form trypsin. The free trypsin then cleaves the rest of the trypsinogen and chymotrypsinogen to their active forms.

Pancreatic secretions accumulate in intralobular ducts that drain to the main pancreatic duct, which drains directly into the duodenum.

Endocrine

Embedded throughout the exocrine tissue are small clusters of cells called the Islets of Langerhans, which are the endocrine cells of the pancreas and secrete insulin, glucagon, and several other hormones. The islets contain three different types of cells — alpha cells (produce glucagon), beta cells (the most numerous, produce insulin), and delta cells (produce somatostatin). There are also the PP cells and the D1 cells, about which little is known.

Diseases of the pancreas

Benign tumours

Carcinoma of pancreas

Cystic fibrosis

Diabetes

Pancreatitis

Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Pancreas."

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Abbreviations & Acronyms: Pancreas

The following table is compiled from various sources, across various languages. When English abbreviations or acronyms come from a non-English source, this is noted.
Entry	Source	Expression	Field
PANART	English	Artificial pancreas	Engineering & Technology
PANART	Italian	Pancreas artificiale	N/A
Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references).

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Crosswords: Pancreas

English words defined with "pancreas": arteria pancreatica ♦ bronzed diabetes ♦ cystic fibrosis ♦ DiaBeta ♦ fibrocystic disease of the pancreas ♦ glipzide, glucagon, Glucotrol, glyburide, Guanin ♦ hemochromatosis ♦ insulin, iron overload, iron-storage disease, islands of Langerhans, isles of Langerhans, islets of Langerhans ♦ Leucin ♦ Micronase, mucoviscidosis ♦ pancreatectomy, pancreatic, pancreatic artery, pancreatic cancer, pancreatic duct, pancreatic fibrosis, Pancreatic juice, pancreatic vein, pancreatin, pancreatitis ♦ secretin, stomach sweetbread ♦ trypsinogen, Tyrosin ♦ venae pancreatica. (references)

Specialty definitions using "pancreas": Alpha Cell, ampulla of Vater, Artificial Pancreas ♦ Bile Reflux, biomarkers ♦ Carcinoma, Pancreatic Ductal, Chymotrypsin, Colipases, Cystadenoma, Mucinous ♦ D Cells ♦ Endocrine disruptor ♦ Gastrinoma ♦ islet cell, islet cell cancer ♦ Pancreas Transplant, Pancreas Transplantation, Pancreas, Artificial, pancreatic disease, Pancreatic Ducts, Pancreatic Elastase, pancreatic enzymes, Pancreatic Fistula, Pancreatic Function Tests, pancreatic islets, pancreatic juices, Pancreatic Neoplasms, Pancreatic Pseudocyst, Pancreaticoduodenectomy, Pancreatitis, Alcoholic, Peptic Ulcer Perforation, Proinsulin ♦ Selenomethionine, sialyl Tn-KLH, Sincalide, Somatostatin, stage I pancreatic cancer, stage III pancreatic cancer, stage IV pancreatic cancer, stage IVA pancreatic cancer ♦ total pancreatectomy, tumor marker ♦ unresectable gallbladder cancer ♦ Whipple procedure, Wobe-Mugos E. (references)

Etymologies containing "pancreas": pancreatin. (references)

Non-English Usage: "Pancreas" is also a word in the following languages with English translations in parentheses.

Dutch (pancreas), Italian (pancreas), Romanian (pancreas).

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Commercial Usage: Pancreas

Domain	Title
Books	Atlas of Tumor Pathology: Tumors of the Exocrine Pancreas (reference) Handbook of Physiology: A Critical, Comprehensive Presentation of Physiological Knowledge and Concepts: Section 7: The Endocrine System, Vol. 2: The Endocrine Pancreas and Reg. of Metabolism (reference) The Diabetic Pancreas (reference) Tumors of the Pancreas (reference) (more book examples)
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

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Image Slideshow: Pancreas

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Non-Fiction Usage: Pancreas

Subject	Topic	Quote
Health		One of these organs is the pancreas. (references)
		Some pancreas transplants have been successful. (references)
		Pancreatitis is an inflammation of the pancreas. (references)
Source: compiled by the editor from ICON Group International, Inc.; see credits.

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Usage Frequency: Pancreas

"Pancreas" is generally used as a noun (singular) -- approximately 97.85% of the time. "Pancreas" is used about 186 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted)

Parts of Speech	Percent	Usage per 100 Million Words	Rank in English
Noun (singular)	97.85%	182	22,870
Noun (proper)	2.15%	4	175,879
Total	100.00%	186	N/A

Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.

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Expression: Pancreas

Expressions using "pancreas": Artificial Pancreas ♦ fibrocystic disease of the pancreas ♦ Pancreas Transplant ♦ Pancreas Transplantation. Additional references.
Hyphenated Usage
	Beginning with "pancreas": pancreas-piercing.
	Ending with "pancreas": Hepato-pancreas.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

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Frequency of Internet Keywords: Pancreas

The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com.

Expression	Frequency per Day
pancreas	1,549
pancreas cancer	316
pancreas disease	58
pancreas picture	57
pancreas transplant	47
function of the pancreas	43
alcohol pancreas	29
pancreas tumor	27
pancreas ultrasound	26
pancreas cancer symptom	26
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits.

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Modern Translations: Pancreas

Language		Translations for "pancreas"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses.
Afrikaan		alvleesklier. (various references)

Albanian		pankreas. (various references)

Arabic		‏بنكرياس. (various references)

Bulgarian		задстомашна жлеза, подстомашна жлеза, панкреас. (various references)

Chinese		胰腺, 膵 . (various references)

Czech		pankreas, slinivka břišní. (various references)

Danish		pancreas, bugspytkirtel (gutbread, stomach sweetbread). (various references)

Dutch		pancreas, alvleesklier (gutbread, stomach sweetbread). (various references)

Esperanto		pankreaso. (various references)

Farsi		لوزالمعده(تش.), خوش گوشت . (various references)

Finnish		haima. (various references)

French		pancréas. (various references)

German		Pankreas, Bauchspeicheldrüse (gutbread, pancreases, stomach sweetbread). (various references)

Greek		πάγκρεας. (various references)

Hebrew		בלוטת �"כרס. (various references)

Hungarian		hasnyálmirigy. (various references)

Indonesian		kelenjar getah bening. (various references)

Italian		pancreas (gutbread, stomach sweetbread). (various references)

Japanese Kanji		膵�" . (various references)

Japanese Katakana		すいぞう. (various references)

Korean		췌장 (Pancreatic). (various references)

Manx		fairaig villish. (various references)

Pig Latin		ancreaspay.(various references)

Portuguese		pancromático (panchromatic), pâncreas (gutbread, stomach sweetbread, sweetbreads). (various references)

Romanian		pancreas. (various references)

Russian		поджелудочная железа. (various references)

Serbo-Croatian		pankreas, gušterača. (various references)

Spanish		páncreas (gutbread, stomach sweetbread). (various references)

Swedish		pankreas, bukspottkörtel. (various references)

Turkish		pankreas. (various references)

Ukranian		підшлункова залоза. (various references)

Vietnamese		tuyến tuỵ. (various references)

Welsh		cefndedyn (diaphragm, mesentery). (various references)
Source: compiled by the editor from various translation references.

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Ancestral Language Translations: Pancreas

Language	Period	Translations
Greek	700 BCE-300 CE	pankreas. (various references)
Source: compiled by the editor from various references.

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Derivations & Misspellings: Pancreas

Derivations
	Words beginning with "pancreas": pancreases. (additional references)
	Words ending with "pancreas": hepatopancreas. (additional references)
	Words containing "pancreas": hepatopancreases. (additional references)
Misspellings
	"Pancreas" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: Panarea, pancea, panceras, panceris, pancras, pancrase, pancrea, pancrease, pancreata, pancreaus, pancreus, pencreas, ponceau. (additional references)
Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references).

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Rhyming with "Pancreas"

# of Phoneme Matches	Pronunciation	Word(s) rhyming with "pancreas" (pronounced pa"nkrēus)
4	-r ē u s	curious, deleterious, delirious, denarius, furious, glorious, gregarious, hilarious, illustrious, imperious, industrious, inglorious, injurious, laborious, lugubrious, meritorious, mysterious, nefarious, notorious, penurious, precarious, Sartorius, serious, spurious, various, vicarious, victorious, vitreous.
3	-ē u s	acrimonious, alias, amphibious, aqueous, bilious, coleus, commodious, contemporaneous, copious, courteous, devious, dubious, envious, erroneous, extraneous, fastidious, felonious, gaseous, harmonious, hideous, homogeneous, igneous, ignominious, impervious, insidious, instantaneous, invidious, lascivious, luxurious, melodious, miscellaneous, nucleus, oblivious, obsequious, obvious, odious, percutaneous, previous, punctilious, radius, sanctimonious, simultaneous, spontaneous, studious, supercilious, tedious, unceremonious.
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits.

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Anagrams: Pancreas

Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams
	Words within the letters "a-a-c-e-n-p-r-s"
	-1 letter: canapes, prances.
	-2 letters: anears, apneas, arcane, arecas, arenas, arpens, caesar, canape, caners, capers, casern, cranes, crapes, escarp, nacres, pacers, paeans, paesan, parsec, pecans, prance, rances, recaps, sarape, scrape, secpar, spacer.
	-3 letters: acnes, acres, anear, ansae, apace, apers, apnea, apres, areas, areca, arena, arpen, aspen, asper, caner, canes, caper, capes, cares, carns, carps, carse, crane, crape, craps, earns, escar, nacre, napes, narcs, nares, neaps, nears, pacas, pacer, paces, paean, panes, parae, paras, pares, parse, peans, pears, pecan, prase, presa, races, rance, rapes, reaps, recap, sacra, saner, saran, scape, scare, scarp, scena, scrap, serac, snare, sneap, space, spare, spean, spear.
	-4 letters: aces, acne, acre, anas, anes, ansa, aper, apes, apse, arcs, area, ares, arse, asea, cane, cans, cape, caps, care, carn, carp, cars, casa, case, ceps, crap, earn, ears, eras, erns, nape, naps, narc, neap, near, paca, pace, pacs, pane, pans, para, pare, pars, pase, pean, pear, peas, pecs, pens, race, rape, raps, rase, rasp, reap, recs, reps, sane, scan, scar, sear, sera, snap, spae, span, spar, spec.
	-5 letters: aas, ace, ana, ane, ape, arc, are, ars, asp, can, cap, car, cep, ear, ens, era, ern, ers, nae, nap, pac, pan, par, pas, pea, pec, pen, per, pes, ran, rap, ras, rec, rep, res, sac, sae, sap, sea, sec, sen, ser, spa.
	Words containing the letters "a-a-c-e-n-p-r-s"
	+1 letter: catnapers, parlances.
	+2 letters: catnappers, landscaper, marchpanes, mascarpone, mercaptans, pancreases, rampancies.
	+3 letters: absorptance, appearances, campaigners, caparisoned, ceratopsian, landscapers, mascarpones, pancreatins, parcenaries, parenchymas, relandscape.
	+4 letters: absorptances, antipiracies, cameraperson, ceratopsians, chaperonages, emancipators, handicappers, hypercapnias, pancreatitis, relandscaped, relandscapes, transparence, transparency.
	+5 letters: alphanumerics, antiparticles, appreciations, appurtenances, camerapersons, coparcenaries, coplanarities, cryptanalyses, disappearance, endoparasitic, paramountcies, parasynthetic, paternalistic, pediatricians, plantocracies, practicalness, preclearances, procarbazines, procrastinate, prosencephala, rapaciousness, reappearances, relandscaping, transcriptase, transparences, unspectacular, upperclassman.
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro.