Morphologic and Morphometric Variation of Occipital Condyles in Adult Egyptian Population. Dry Bone and Radiological Study

Abstract Background: Successful lateral suboccipital approaches in neurosurgery depend on understanding the anatomy of the paracondylar occipital region and the detailed knowledge about the orientation of the occipital condyles in relation to the foramen magnum and hypoglossal canal. The present study was assigned to demonstrate the morphological and morphometrical variation of these occipital condyles. Aim of Study: The present study was assigned to: - Study the morphologic and morphometric characteristics of the ocs by using Egyptian males and females dry human skulls. - Clarify the morphometric data of the occipital condyles of adult Egyptian males and females in different five age groups by using multi-detected computed. Material and Methods: The present study was carried out on 38 skulls (76 occipital condyles) in the Anatomy and Embryology Department, Faculty of Medicine, Cairo Univer-sity and 150 MDCT images (300 OCs) obtained from the Radiology Department, Faculty of Medicine, Cairo University Hospital. Results: Several variations were observed in the dry bone, the oval OCs was in 44.7% while the irregular and triangular OCs were in 1.3% of the total studied sample. The posterior condylar foramen was observed bilaterally in 55.2%, unilat-erally in 26.3% and totally absent in 18.5%. The sex influence on the distances between the OCs, the hypoglossal canalex-ternal opening, basion and opisthion in the current work was found to be statistically non-significant. In the radiological images, there was statistically significant difference in the OCL, OCW, ACA, CCH between males and females and among the different age groups of both sexes. The width and thickness of OCs are of ultimate surgical importance to allow the neurosurgeon to know the medial limit and the maximum depth allowed for drilling in transcondylar approaches. Conclusion: It could be concluded that the sex and age of the patient should be considered while selecting the optimal approach among the lateral suboccipital approaches in patients with certain type and size pathologies ventrolateral to the brainstem to avoid the complications of open cranial surgeries.