Presentation
Blunt trauma to the face at work. Incidental finding.
Patient Data
Unremarkable CT imaging of the facial bones, and brain.
Incidental finding of dual, mental spines, left larger than the right, with a central mental or lingual foramen.
These are best appreciated on the zoomed, axial, bone windows.
Zoomed and annotated, axial, bony windows demonstrate the mental spines, the left greater than the right. The lingual foramen is also well appreciated.
Case Discussion
Mental spines are small, midline, paired, superior and inferior bony protuberances of the posterior lingual surface of the mandible. They are the points of origin of the genioglossus (superior) and geniohyoid (inferior) muscles. Collectively the four spines are also called the genial tubercle.1.
In this instance, they are suspected to be inferior and represent the points of origin of the geniohyoid muscles. The left spine appears larger than the right.
Centrally there is usually a mental or lingual foramen that allows branches of the sublingual artery and lingual nerve to pass through.1.
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