Mesentery

Mesentery is a fold of visceral peritoneum that anchors the abdominal viscera to the posterior wall of the abdomen. The mesentery mainly comprises the small intestinal mesentery, the right, left and transverse mesocolon, mesosigmoid and mesorectum. Conventional teaching has dogmatically described the mesocolon as a fragmented structure, i.e. the small intestinal mesentery, transverse and sigmoid mesocolon all ‘terminate’ at their ‘insertion’ into the posterior abdominal wall. Recent advances in gastrointestinal anatomy have demonstrated that the mesenteric organ is in fact a single continuous structure from the duodenojejunal flexure to the level of the distal mesorectum.