Occipital bone thickness: Implications on occipital-cervical fusion. A cadaveric study

Abstract

Objective: The aim of this study was to create a map of the occipital bone using a cadaveric morphometric analysis.Material: Twelve heads, from seven male andŞve female cadavers, were studied. The thickness of theoccipital bone was measured with a digital vernier caliper within a coordinate system.Results: The maximum thickness of the occipital bone could be measured at the external occipitalprotuberance (mean 15.4 mm; range 9e29.3 mm). All male individuals had higher bone thicknessaround this point. Further lateral a steady decrease of bone thickness could be observed. Same could beobserved in craniocaudal direction. However, values above the superior nuchal line were on averagethicker than below.Conclusion: The measurements demonstrated a great individual variability of bone thickness of theoccipital bone. The results emphasize the role of preoperative planning for the feasibility of placement ofan occipital screw.© 2016 Turkish Association of Orthopaedics and Traumatology. Publishing services by Elsevier B.V. This isan open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/)