Anatomical variants of sphenoid sinuses pneumatisation: a CT scan study on a Northern Italian population

Sphenoid bone may be affected by different variants of pneumatisation, which have a relevant importance from a clinical and surgical point of view. The description of such variants in different populations may give useful information. However, few articles describe the variability of sphenoid pneumatised structures and none of them focuses on Northern Italian population. Variants of pneumatisation of sphenoid bone were described in a sample of 300 Northern Italian patients who underwent a CT scan. More than fifty-seven percent of patients showed a form of anatomical variant: the most common form was the pneumatised pterygoid processes (39.6%), followed by dorsum sellae (32.9%) and clinoid processes (20.3%), without statistically significant differences between males and females (p > 0.01). In 26.3% of patients, a combined pneumatisation of these three structures was observed, being the combination pterygoid processes-dorsum sellae the most frequent (11.3%). In 9.3%, all the three sphenoid structures were affected. This article is the first description of the prevalence of different variants of pneumatisation in a Northern Italian population: the occurrence of such forms has to be acknowledged for their possible clinical and surgical consequences.