Incidence of Foramen Vesalius in Adult Human North Indian Crania

Abstract

Foramen Vesalius is a small, variable and an inconstant foramen located in the greater wing of sphenoid, anteromedial to the foramen ovale, in the middle cranial fossa. This foramen is also known as emissary sphenoidal foramen as it transmits a small emissary vein which drains Cavernous sinus. The importance of this foramen lies in the fact that an infected thrombus from an extracranial source may reach cavernous sinus. The present study was undertaken to observe the incidence of foramen Vesalius in the adult human crania in north India. For this purpose, 200 macerated skulls of unknown age and sex were observed. These skulls were obtained from the departments of Anatomy in

A Morphologic and Morphometric Study of Foramen Vesalius in Dry Adult Human Skulls of Gujarat Region

“…Total distribution of this foramen was lower in the studies done by various authors [7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18] as compared to present study as shown in [Table/ Fig-11]. …”

“…The components of the skull base are derived from neural crest cells and mesoderm during the fourth week of fetal life to form the cartilaginous and bony components of the cranial base [5]. Before Gupta et al, [7] 2014 34% 14% 20%…”

“…These veins act as potential channels for transmitting sepsis from extracranial veins to intracranial venous sinuses. In treatment of trigeminal neuralgia, needle targeting foramen ovale can be misplaced towards foramen vesalius causing serious intracranial bleeding [2,7].…”

The size of the foramen ovale regarding to the presence and absence of the emissary sphenoidal foramen: is there any relationship between them?

“…In the present study, the ESF occurred in 40% of the skulls (21.5% bilaterally, 18.5% unilaterally -7% on the right and 11% on the left side), but no statistically significant difference was detected. Variability existed regarding to the bilateral and unilateral appearance and the side of occurrence [4,12,25,28,30]. Several proposals highlighted the variability of the ESF presence owing to ethnic differences, evolutionary processes [32] and the fact that the ESF represents the site of fusion between the membrane bone and ala temporalis [15].…”

“…Following the years, several anatomical studies have focused on FO morphology and morphometry and the ESF presence, absence, morphology and morphometry [9,12,21,25,30,33], but only the study of Wood-Jones [42] was referred to the correlation of FO morphology and the ESF presence or absence. Considering the above observations, we decided to investigate FO size in relation to the ESF absence or presence.…”