Morphology, topography and clinical signi cance of the jugular foramen.

The paper describes morphological variants of the jugular foramen of the human skull and discusses the reasons for its frequent asymmetry. Bilateral disproportions between the anteroposterior and mediolateral diameters of the jugular foramina were analyzed. We established that the jugular foramen is extremely narrow when its anteroposterior diameter is less than 5.0 mm. When the mediolateral diameter exceeds 20.0 mm, then the foramen exhibits extreme widening.