Falciform ligament

The falciform ligament is a ligament that attaches the liver to the front body wall, and separates the liver into the left lobe and right lobes. The falciform ligament, from Latin, meaning 'sickle-shaped', is a broad and thin fold of peritoneum, its base being directed downward and backward and its apex upward and forward. The falciform ligament droops down from the hilum of the liver.Cross-section showing the primitive mesentery of a six weeks’ human embryo.Cross-section showing folds of peritoneum in the upper abdomen.A cadaver liver seen from above, showing the falciform ligament at the top. The falciform ligament is a ligament that attaches the liver to the front body wall, and separates the liver into the left lobe and right lobes. The falciform ligament, from Latin, meaning 'sickle-shaped', is a broad and thin fold of peritoneum, its base being directed downward and backward and its apex upward and forward. The falciform ligament droops down from the hilum of the liver. The falciform ligament stretches obliquely from the front to the back of the abdomen, with one surface in contact with the peritoneum behind the right rectus abdominis muscle and the diaphragm, and the other in contact with the left lobe of the liver. The ligament stretches from the underside of the diaphragm to the posterior surface of the sheath of the right rectus abdominis muscle, as low down as the umbilicus; by its right margin it extends from the notch on the anterior margin of the liver, as far back as the posterior surface.