NEW DATA ON THE PROJECTION ANATOMY OF THE BRAINSTEM PARTS BASED ON COMPUTED TOMOGRAPHY STUDIES

In order to identify differences in the projection anatomy of the brainstem parts, depending on the form of the posterior cranial fossa, a projection analysis of CT scans of 160 patients of both sexes aged 18 to 70 years without skull and the brain pathology was conducted using the developed system of projection lines and bony landmarks. The variants of brainstem part location within the projection planes were determined: the medulla oblongata was located at the level of the plane of the lower margin of the external auditory meatus, the level of the Frankfurt horizontal plane corresponded to the border between the medulla oblongata and the pons, the plane the outer corner of the eye fissure coincided with the pons, the level of the nasion corresponded to the location of the mesencephalon. The spatial arrangement of the brainstem within the posterior cranial fossa, and the projection of its parts to the occipital and temporal region of the head had several variants and depended on the depth of the posterior cranial fossa. The differences demonstrated must be considered during the individual planning of surgical accesses to the posterior fossa structures.

posterior fossa, brain stem, projection anatomy, computed tomography