Head and neck – Case 55

A : Frontal bone ( outer table of skull vault )
B : Coronal suture
C : Tongue
D : Soft palate
E : Lambdoid suture

Remarks :
1. Lateral X-ray of the head of a paediatric patient.
2. The skull is made up of various flat bones which can be divided into 3 regions :
a) Outer table : Outer cortical bone
b) Dipole : Spongy bone that harvest red bone marrow inside, thus is more radiolucent than surrounding cortical bone
c) Inner table : Inner cortical bone
3. In sagittal cut, 2 sutures can be visualised at skull vault :
a) Between frontal and parietal bone : Coronal suture, arched shape in frontal level of vertical level of temporal bone 
b) Between parietal and occipital bone, Lambdoid suture, 2 straight lines with angle between them, together with sagittal suture, looks like lamda symbol
4. Do not confuse the soft palate with the ramus of mandible, it is connected with the hard palate, while vertical lines can be traced along mandible to locate the ramus