Papers of the Week

The most common method of local anesthesia of maxillofacial region in the modern surgical practice is conductive anesthesia of the peripheral branches of trigeminal nerve. In order to reach the total anesthesia of the lateral facial region it is necessary to block not only auriculo-temporal and buccal nerves, but also facial branches of great auricular nerve taking part in the innervation of parotid-masticatory area and the part of the cheek. Topographic-anatomical investigations of corpses revealed the anatomical variability of the branching of great auricular nerve on the neck and the head. Taking into account the topographic-anatomical aspects of variability of innervation of the lateral facial region, we developed the method of conductive anesthesia of the facial branches of great auricular nerve.