Gross Morphometry and Histometry of Pancreas in Postnatal Indian Pigs (Sus scrofa domesticus)

The present study was conducted to evaluate the gross morphometry and histometry of the pancreas in different postnatal age groups of Indian domestic pigs (Sus scrofa domesticus) such as pancreas weight, pancreatic lobes length and width, capsule thickness, acini and islet diameter. Pancreases were collected from 18 apparently healthy animals irrespective of sex from local slaughter houses in and around Hyderabad and were categorized into three age groups: Group I (0-4 weeks), Group II (4-10 weeks), Group III (>10 weeks) with six specimens in each group. The pancreas weight showed progressive increase with advancing age with the lowest value recorded in Group I (0-4 weeks) and the highest in Group III (>10 weeks) with highly significant difference among groups. A strong positive correlation was also observed between body weight and pancreas weight (p=0.991). The mean length of pancreatic lobes increased progressively and significantly with the advancing age with greatest lobe length recorded in splenic lobe of Group III (12.08 ± 0.84 cm) and least length in connecting lobe of Group I (2.42 ± 0.46 cm). The mean width of all the pancreatic lobes increased progressively with advancing age with greatest width noticed in splenic lobe (4.62 ± 0.50 cm) of Group III and least width in duodenal lobe of Group I (0.88 ± 0.22 cm). The study provides basic information, which is very useful for identification of any pathological changes and for further studies such as porcine islet transplantation. Histometry included capsule thickness, acini and islet diameter of which capsule thickness increased significantly (p = 0.005) from 116.89 ± 13.74 µm (Group I) to 337.49 ± 41.12 µm (Group III). Acinar diameter and Islet diameter showed an increase in all the lobes from Group I to Group III. The splenic lobe showed a significant age-related differences in acinar diameter (p= 0.005) and islet diameter (p=0.008), whereas the connecting and duodenal lobes showed no significant differences. Thus, post-natally pancreas undergone gross and histological changes.