BACKGROUND: The accurate measurements of various data of the bone diameters of foramen ovale of living person can change the methods of puncturing trigeminal gasserian ganglion via foramen ovale for treating trifacial neuralgia from the experience of puncture operator only to puncture by taking the objective data of measurement as the evidence, which is good for improving the accuracy of puncturing trigeminal ganglion and reducing side effects.OBJECTIVE: To observe the forms of foramen ovales in healthy adults displayed by volume rendering and multi-planar reconstruction after three-dimensional spiral CT thin-slice scan of skull base, and measure the longitudinal diameter and transverse diameter. DESIGN: A repetitive observation and measurement. SETTINGS: Department of Neurosurgery and Department of Medical Imaging, Foshan Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine.PARTICIPANTS: Fifty healthy adults (100 sides), who were examined with three-dimensional spiral CT scan, were randomly selected from the Department of Medical Imaging, Foshan Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine from January 2005 to January 2006, including 26 males and 24 females, aged 25-68 years with an average of 48 years old. They were all informed and agreed with the examination. METHODS: The subjects were examined with the Philips 16-slice spiral CT-Mx 8000 IDT CT apparatus (Philips Company, Holland), the scanning ranged from 2 cm below the canthomeatal line to the level of suprasellar cistern. The width of collimator was 0.75 mm, pitch was 0.663; tube current was 350 mA, voltage was 120 kV, resolution was 512×512 matrix; slice thickness of reconstruction was 1 mm, and interval was 0.5 mm. After the three-dimensional spiral CT thin-slice scan of skull base, the image post-processing techniques including volume rendering and multi-planar reconstruction were applied to observe the forms of foramen ovales, and measure the size, longitudinal diameter and transverse diameter of the foramen ovales. The figures of the foramen ovales were drawn with mouse along the boundary of bone porous margin and soft tissue. According to the indications, the diameters were measured with computer to observe the forms of foramen ovales. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: The longitudinal diameter, transverse diameter and form of foramen ovales were observed. RESULTS: All the 50 healthy adults (100 sides) were involved in the analysis of results. ① It was observed in the volume rendering images that foramen ovales had four forms of oval shape (77 sides), kidney shape (12 sides), round shape (7 sides), ribbon shape (4 sides). ② The longitudinal diameters of left and right foramen ovales were (7.67±1.32) and (7.98±1.45) mm, and the transverse diameters were (4.04±0.83), (4.09±1.07) mm; There was no obvious difference between left and right longitudinal diameters (t = 1.63, P = 0.11), and left and right transverse diameters were close (t = 0.45, P = 0.65). CONCLUSION: The non-invasive techniques of volume rendering and multi-planar reconstruction after three-dimensional spiral CT thin-slice scan can clearly display the formand size of foramen ovale in healthy adults. BACKGROUND: The accurate measurements of various data of the bone diameters of foramen ovale of living person can change the methods of puncturing trigeminal gasserian ganglion via foramen ovale for treating trifacial neuralgia from the experience of puncture operator only to puncture by taking the objective data of measurement as the evidence, which is good for improving the accuracy of puncturing trigeminal ganglion and reducing side effects. OBJECTIVE: To observe the forms of foramen ovales in healthy adults displayed by volume rendering and multi-planar reconstruction after three-dimensional spiral CT thin-slice DESIGN: A repetitive observation and measurement. SETTINGS: Department of Neurosurgery and Department of Medical Imaging, Foshan Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine. PARTICIPANTS: Fifty healthy adults (100 sides), who were examined with three-dimensional spiral CT scan, were randomly selected ted from the Department of Medical Imaging, Foshan Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine from January 2005 to January 2006, including 26 males and 24 females, aged 25-68 years with an average of 48 years old. They were all informed and agreed with the examination METHODS: The subjects were examined with the Philips 16-slice spiral CT-Mx 8000 IDT CT apparatus (Philips Company, Holland), the scanning ranged from 2 cm below the canthomeatal line to the level of suprasellar cistern. The width of collimator was 0.75 mm, pitch was 0.663; tube current was 350 mA, voltage was 120 kV, resolution was 512 × 512 matrix; slice thickness of reconstruction was 1 mm, and interval was 0.5 mm. After the three-dimensional spiral CT thin- of skull base, the image post-processing techniques including volume rendering and multi-planar reconstruction were applied to observe the forms of foramen ovales, and measure the size, longitudinal diameter and transverse diameter of the foramen ovales. Thefigures of the foramen ovales were drawn with mouse along the boundary of bone porous margin and soft tissue. According to the indications, the diameters were measured with computer to observe the forms of foramen ovales. MAIN OUTCOME MEASURES: The longitudinal diameter, transverse diameter and of the 50 healthy adults (100 sides) were involved in the analysis of results. ① It was observed in the volume rendering that that foramen ovales had four forms of oval shape (77 sides), kidney The shapes of the left and right foramen ovales were (7.67 ± 1.32) and (7.98 ± 1.45) mm, and the transverse diameters were ( 4.04 ± 0.83), (4.09 ± 1.07) mm; There was no obvious difference between left and right longitudinal diameters (t = 1.63, P = 0.11) CONCLUSION: The non-invasive techniques of volume re ndering and multi-planar reconstruction after three-dimensional spiral CT thin-slice scan can clearly display the formand size of foramen ovale in healthy adults.