Lumen (anatomy)
Cavity within an organ
In biology, a lumen (pl.: lumina) is the inside space of a tubular structure, such as an artery or intestine. It comes from Latin lumen 'an opening'.
It can refer to:
- the interior of a vessel, such as the central space in an artery, vein or capillary through which blood flows
- the interior of the gastrointestinal tract
- the pathways of the bronchi in the lungs
- the interior of renal tubules and urinary collecting ducts
- the pathways of the female genital tract, starting with a single pathway of the vagina, splitting up in two lumina in the uterus, both of which continue through the fallopian tubes
- the fluid-filled cavity forming in the blastocyst during pre-implantation development called the blastocoel
In cell biology, lumen is a membrane-defined space that is found inside several organelles, cellular components, or structures, including thylakoid, endoplasmic reticulum, Golgi apparatus, lysosome, mitochondrion, and microtubule.
01Transluminal procedures
Transluminal procedures are procedures occurring through lumina, including:
- natural orifice transluminal endoscopic surgery in the lumina of, for example, the stomach, vagina, bladder, or colon
- procedures through the lumina of blood vessels, such as various interventional radiology procedures:
- percutaneous transluminal angioplasty
- percutaneous transluminal commissurotomy
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Lumen (anatomy)”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
Images, from Wikimedia Commons:
- Gut wall.svg by Auawise at English Wikipedia (Original text: Λua∫Wise (Operibus anteire) ), CC BY 3.0
- Normal breast histology.png by Mikael Häggström, M.D. Author info - Reusing images - Conflicts of interest: None Mikael Häggström, M.D. Consent note: Consent from the patient or patient's relatives is regarded as redundant, because of absence of identifiable features (List of HIPAA identifiers) in the media and case information (See also HIPAA case reports guidance). The image integrates a source image by de Bel T, Litjens G, Ogony J, Stallings-Mann M, Carter JM, and Hilton T, CC BY 4.0
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