One of the major complications of a number of oral and maxillofacial surgery procedures is injury to the lingual nerve. Because of its particular anatomic loca- tion, it may be damaged during third molar extraction as well as periodontal procedures, mandibular trauma management. and excision of neoplastic lesions. The reported incidence of injury ranges from 0.5% to 22%‘”
The principal reason for this problem lies in the anatomic variations of the lingual nerve and, there- fore, the inability of the surgeon to know its precise location. To avoid these iatrogenic injuries, a knowl- edge of the possible location of the lingual nerve is necessary. Previous attempts to etermine the abso- lute location of the nerve have consisted of cadaveric
dissections-‘” and the use of magnetic resonance
imaging (MRI),’ but both methods have possibly been
inaccurate. For example, the previous cadaveric stud- ies suffer from inaccuracies caused by iatrogenic displacement of the nerve as well as the use of fixation processes. Furthermore. none of the previous studies had an acceptable sample size.
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