Gastric lymph nodes explained

Gastric lymph nodes
Latin:	nodi lymphoidei gastrici
Drainsto:	Celiac lymph nodes

The gastric lymph nodes are lymph nodes (also known as lymph glands) which drain the stomach and consist of two sets, superior and inferior:

• The superior gastric lymph nodes accompany the left gastric artery and are divisible into three groups:
  • Upper, on the stem of the artery;
  • Lower, accompanying the descending branches of the artery along the cardiac half of the lesser curvature of the stomach, between the two layers of the lesser omentum;
  • Paracardial outlying members of the gastric lymph nodes, disposed in a manner comparable to a chain of beads around the neck of the stomach. They receive their afferents from the stomach; their efferents pass to the celiac group of preaortic lymph nodes.
• The inferior gastric lymph nodes (; right gastroepiploic lymph nodes), four to seven in number, lie between the two layers of the greater omentum along the pyloric half of the greater curvature of the stomach.