Transverse colon

Looks like

The loop of large bowel hanging across the upper belly from right to left, below the stomach.

What it does

Continues drying the contents and moves them to the left side.

Keeping it well

Shares the colon's risks; bowel screening and reporting blood or a lasting change in habit matter most.

Related conditions

• Acute mesenteric ischaemia (gut stroke)
• Appendicitis
• Bowel obstruction
• Chagas disease
• Chronic constipation
• Clostridioides difficile colitis
• Colon polyps
• Colorectal cancer
• Crohn's disease
• Diverticular disease
• Food poisoning
• Gastroenteritis
• Gastrointestinal bleeding
• Hereditary cancer syndromes (BRCA, Lynch)
• Infant colic
• Intussusception & pyloric stenosis
• Irritable bowel syndrome
• Liver abscess (pyogenic and amoebic)
• Microscopic colitis
• Necrotising enterocolitis
• Typhoid & cholera
• Ulcerative colitis