What is the Pterygomaxillary fossa?
The pterygomaxillary fossa is found posterior to the maxillary sinus and inferior to the sphenoid bone and orbital process of the palatine bone. It is lateral to the perpendicular plate of the palatal bone and anterior to the base of the pterygoid process and to the anterior surface of the greater wing of the sphenoid.
Where is the Pterygomaxillary fossa?
The pterygopalatine fossa (PPF) is a small, clinically inaccessible, fat-filled space located in the deep face that serves as a major neurovascular crossroad between the oral cavity, nasal cavity, nasopharynx, orbit, masticator space, and the middle cranial fossa.
Is Pterygomaxillary and pterygopalatine fossa same?
The pterygomaxillary fissure is located between the anterior and posterior wall of the pterygopalatine fossa. It communicates with the infratemporal fossa and transmits the posterior superior alveolar nerve and the maxillary artery.
What is sphenopalatine fossa?
The pterygopalatine fossa (PPF), less commonly known as the sphenopalatine fossa, is a small but complex space of the deep face in the shape of an inverted pyramid located between the maxillary bone anteriorly, the pterygoid process posteriorly, and orbital apex superiorly.
What passes through the pterygomaxillary fissure?
The pterygomaxillary fissure transmits the posterior superior alveolar nerve, a branch of maxillary division of the trigeminal nerve from the pterygopalatine fossa to the infratemporal fossa. Terminal branches of the maxillary artery also enter the fissure.
What is a fossa in anatomy?
Fossa – A shallow depression in the bone surface. Here it may receive another articulating bone or act to support brain structures. Examples include trochlear fossa, posterior, middle, and anterior cranial fossa.
What is found in the pterygopalatine fossa?
The vascular and nervous structures are located anteroinferiorly and posterosuperiorly within the pterygopalatine fossa. The sphenopalatine artery, which is a branch of the internal maxillary artery, is found between the sphenoid and palatine bones and enters the nasal cavity at the sphenopalatine foramen.
What does pterygopalatine mean?
: a small triangular space beneath the apex of the orbit that is bounded above by the sphenoid bone and the orbital process of the palatine bone, in front by the maxilla, medially by the palatine bone, and behind by the pterygoid process of the sphenoid bone and that contains among other structures the pterygopalatine …
What goes through Pterygomaxillary fissure?
What is Pterygoid fossa?
The pterygoid fossa is an anatomical term for the fossa formed by the divergence of the lateral pterygoid plate and the medial pterygoid plate of the sphenoid bone.
How is sphenopalatine foramen formed?
The sphenopalatine foramen forms from the fusion of the palatine bone and the sphenoid bone around the sphenopalatine artery; thus, a description of the embryology of the structures, as mentioned earlier, will provide a better understanding of the development of the sphenopalatine foramen.
Where is the fossa?
Madagascar
A relative of the mongoose, the fossa is unique to the forests of Madagascar, an African island in the Indian Ocean. Growing up to 6 feet long from nose to tail tip, and weighing up to 26 pounds, the fossa is a slender-bodied catlike creature with little resemblance to its mongoose cousins.