The greater omentum: physiology and immunological concepts.

In surgery, the omentum is used as a very potent tissue in wound healing. This suggests, besides a good vascularization pattern, an important immunological function in which milky spots might be involved. Therefore, we investigated the characteristics of the milky spots in the omentum of an animal model after several immunization procedures. Our results showed that milky spots must be regarded as strongly reactive structures originating from perivascular effusions in the omentum. Moreover, milky spots can firstly be a local source of potent immune effector cells i.e. peritoneal macrophages and secondly can, after specific immunization, be qualified as a lymphoid organ that is, produce a specific (lymphocyte) mediated response. This may shed new light on the reason why the omentum works so well in wound healing.