Liver

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Note

The main lobar fissure (MLF) technically refers anatomically to Cantlie’s line, an imaginary plane dividing the functional right and left hepatic lobes. In ultrasound practice though, the term, “main lobar fissure” is used to describe only the echogenic portion of this plane that extends from the neck of the gallbladder to the portal vein. Although the MLF is grouped with the ligamentum venosum and ligamentum teres in scanning protocols, it is not a true ligament (neither are ligamentum venosum or ligamentum teres as they do not connect bone to bone). The ligament-like appearance results from localized Glissonian connective tissue, dense connective tissue attachment at the gallbladder neck (called the cystic plate), focal fat and fibrosis, and convergence of portal triad fibroelastic connective tissue sheaths at the porta hepatis. Therefore, under the anatomy section, I use “Cantlie’s line” to show the division of right and left lobes and “MLF” to show the echogenic line at the gallbladder neck (which is useful to visualize to find the gallbladder fossa in a patient post-cholecystectomy).