Sex-Dependent Differences of the Greater Palatine Foramen and the Greater Palatine Canal
Author(s): Oleg Vitalievich Kalmin*, Anastasia Vladimirovna Efremova and Larisa Alekseevna Zyulkina
Abstract
The study aimed to identify sex-dependent differences in the morphology of the greater palatine foramen and greater palatine canal in people of the first period of adulthood. The object of the study was 261 people aged 21 to 35 years (the first period of adulthood; 132 females and 129 males). Cone-beam computed tomograms were used to determine the number of greater palatine foramina, their shape, anteroposterior and medio-distal diameters, the length of the greater palatine canal, its shape, and its medio-distal and anteroposterior diameters in the upper, middle, and lower thirds of the canal. It was found that the most common form of the greater palatine foramen in persons of both sexes was the oval shape, elongated in the anterior-posterior direction, and the rarest form was the helical shape. The size of the medio-distal and anteroposterior diameters of the greater palatine foramen is larger in males than in females. In persons of both sexes, the most common form of the greater palatine canal is crescent-shaped, and the forms that occurred least of all were the zigzag-shaped canal and the funnel-shaped canal with a bend in the lower third. The great palatine canal is longer in males than in females. The anteroposterior and medio-distal diameters of the greater palatine canal in the lower, middle, and upper third are smaller in females than in males. The data obtained on the shape and size of the greater palatine foramen and the greater palatine canal are of great importance when providing conduction anaesthesia in the posterior part of the upper jaw, as well as during the blockade of the pterygopalatine ganglion by the palatal access.