Anatomy Monday: Mandibular Foramen


Since I just finished a series of anatomy post of canals I find it fitting to now move onto foramina. 🙂  I’ve already covered a few in the past; the lingual foramen and the mental foramen.  So I will finish off the mandible with today’s post of the mandibular foramen.

The mandibular foramen is the posterior opening of the mandibular canal found on the internal aspect of the mandible in the mid level of the ramus.  It is not visualized on intraoral radiographs unless you are working with DXTTR :D.  On pantomographs it presents as a well-localized radiolucent area at the posterior aspect of the mandibular canal.  On CBCT images the opening is best visualized on axial and coronal views.

mandibular foramen circled pantomographMandibular foramen (yellow circle) as seen on a pantomograph

mandibular foramen pantomographPantomograph without mandibular foramen in yellow.

mandibular foramen CBCT axial with arrowCBCT axial view with mandibular foramen noted with yellow arrow

mandibular foramen CBCT coronal with arrowCBCT coronal view showing the opening of the mandibular canal (aka the mandibular foramen) with a yellow arrow.

If you have any questions or comments about the mandibular foramen, please leave them below in the comments. Thanks and enjoy!