Katti, Karuna and Ali, Naila (2024) Establishing safe zones : orbital interventions guided by palpable bony landmarks. In: Abstracts Presented at the Summer Meeting of the British Association of Clinical Anatomists on 2nd July 2024, at The School of Medicine, Keele University, Keele, United Kingdom :. Wiley, p. 3.
Full text not available from this repository.Abstract
The orbit is a pyramid-shaped bony cavity harbouring a highly specialized sense organ, the eye, and related nerves, vessels and appendages vital for its function. Knowledge of structural organization is not only essential for orbital surgeons but also for healthcare workers involved in procedures like ocular anaesthesia or management of trivial facial trauma. Many studies have addressed orbital parameters, our dry skull study is unique in estimating the safety margin for orbital intervention using surface landmarks. Two hundred and four orbits of 50 male and 52 female dry skulls were studied in Birmingham Medical and Dental School. Callipers were used to measure distances of the optic canal, lateral end of superior orbital fissure (SOF), and inferior orbital fissure (IOF) from palpable bony landmarks on orbital margins: the supraorbital notch, fronto-zygomatic suture, and fronto-maxillary suture. Safety margins were calculated by subtracting 5mm from the shortest measured distance. While it is 40 mm for the optic canal, the safety margin is much narrower for the nerves and vessels exiting from the lateral end of SOF i.e., 25 mm and 30 mm from inferior and lateral landmarks, respectively, and reduces to19 mm all around for IOF. The safety margin should be considered when planning any ocular intervention to avoid inadvertent injury to the orbital contents.