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Hard and Soft Palate

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Clinical Oral Anatomy

Abstract

The roof of the oral cavity is formed by the hard and soft palate. While the main component of the hard palate is bone, the soft palate mainly consists of the muscles that play an important role in controlling the oropharyngeal isthmus. The largest blood vessel in the palate is the greater palatine artery that exits the greater palatine foramen and then courses anteriorly through the palatine sulcus. This artery must be taken into consideration when performing incisions, harvesting connective tissue grafts, or making osteotomies in the (posterior) palate.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Bern School of Dental Medicine Department of Oral Surgery and Stomatology, Bern, Switzerland

    Thomas von Arx

  2. Department of Anatomy Biochemistry & Physiology, John A. Burns School of Medicine, Honolulu, Hawaii, USA

    Scott Lozanoff

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  1. Thomas von Arx
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  2. Scott Lozanoff
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von Arx, T., Lozanoff, S. (2017). Hard and Soft Palate. In: Clinical Oral Anatomy. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-41993-0_10

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-41993-0_10

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