Morphology and locations of infraorbital and supraorbital retaining ligaments in adult cadaver heads

Year 2025, Volume: 19 Issue: 3, 77 - 85, 15.01.2026

Ayşegül Girgin , Oguz Taşkınalp

Abstract

Objectives: The morphology and locations of the infraorbital and supraorbital retaining ligaments in adult facial cadavers and their distances to the determined landmarks were determined in this research.
Methods: The study was conducted on 15 fresh frozen and 13 formaldehyde fixed cadaver heads. Superior orbicular retaining ligament (SORL), inferior orbital retaining ligament (IORL), lateral thickening (LT), zygomatic ligament (ZR) and teartrough (TTh) ligament to the midsagittal line, rima orbitalis and zygomatic peak were measured with an electronic caliper.
Results: The mean distance between SORL and TTh to the zygomatic vertex between the right and left faces of cadavers showed statistically significant differences (p≤0.05). The distance between IORL and midsagittal line point between the right and left faces of cadavers was greater on the left face than on the right face. On the left face, the distance between LT and rima orbitalis was greater in fresh cadavers (p≤0.05). On the right face, the distance between ZL and zygomatic vertex was greater in fresh cadavers. On the left face, the distance between IOR, LT, ZL and TTh and zygomatic vertex was found to differ between fresh and fixed cadavers (p≤0.05). Distance between the IORL and the midsagittal line point was greater in the fixed cadavers on the right side (p≤0.05).
Conclusion: The fact that this study has not been conducted before will be a source for similar studies to be conducted in the future.

Keywords

retaining ligaments , tearthrough ligament , zygomatic retaining ligament

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