Gastric lymph nodes

The gastric lymph nodes accompany the right and left gastric arteries along the lesser curvature of the stomach. In humans and rabbits, they are arranged into two groups: a left group near the cardia and a right group near the pylorus. The left group is absent in dogs, while the right group is missing in horses and pigs.

The stomach is also drained by small omental lymph nodes, which are present in equids and humans—where they are referred to as pancreaticoduodenal nodes —and lie along the gastroepiploic vessels within the greater omentum, near the greater curvature of the stomach. In ruminants, gastric lymph nodes are numerous and accompany the vessels supplying the different compartments.

In ruminants, the gastric nodes may be subdvided into specific groups:

• Right ruminal lymph nodes

• Left ruminal lymph nodes

• Cranial ruminal lymph nodes

• Reticular lymph nodes

• Omasal lymph nodes

• Ruminoabomasal lymph nodes

• Reticuloabomasal lymph nodes

• Dorsal abomasal lymph nodes

• Ventral abomasal lymph nodes

The gastric lymph nodes receive afferent lymphatic vessels from the stomach, the terminal part of the esophagus, the omenta, the beginning of the duodenum, and often from the liver—and even from the diaphragm and pleura in equids and dogs. Their efferent vessels, which form a large gastric trunk in ruminants, drain into:

• The celiac lymph nodes in equids, pigs, and humans,

• The hepatic lymph nodes in carnivores,

• The visceral trunk in rabbits,

• The gastric trunk in ruminants.