hello anatomy colleagues this is dr. Alsup and we will begin our exploration of the exocrine
salivary glands starting with the largest which is the parotid gland in this first session we
will focus only on where we can actually find the parotid gland because it is unique in that it is
not right next to or within the oral cavity like the other salivary glands so we will spend the
majority of the time discussing the boundaries of the parotid fossa those get are very very basic
bearings first so the product land is located in the parotid fossa which is in the reported
region which basically just means this posterior lateral portion of the face so in the most general
terms it's going to be anterior to the ear over the ramus of the mandible but not quite into the
cheek region here so you can see that the teeth are right here so that's the the most general
terms of where you can find that parotid gland but let's get a bit more specific regarding the
boundaries of the parotid fossa so the anterior boundary will be both the ramus of the mandible
which is this vertical portion of the mandible here and the masseter muscle which is going to
lie just superficial to the ramus of the mandible and you can actually palpate your masseter if you
clench your teeth and feel over your mandible you will be feeling that masseter muscle contracting
the posterior boundary is going to be formed by the mastoid process of the temporal bone and your
sternocleidomastoid muscle which if you recall is attached to the mastoid process the superior
boundaries include the temporomandibular joint which I'm circling right here as well as the
external acoustic meatus which is located right here you can see actually on this image of the
parotid gland on this donor that this parotid gland actually extends a little superior to
that general area and this is an important concept as there is always variation between individuals
and that these boundaries were discussing right now are just representations of the most typical
location of the parotid gland lastly the inferior boundary is the hardest to conceptualize and see
and this is the angular tract in fact we can't see it on either one of these images the angular
tract is a dense fascial band that is located between the parotid and the submandibular glands
which the submandibular gland would be located in the submandibular triangle which would be
kind of deep to the platysma region right in there so if you can think of a a facial band
kind of between those two glands that is where the angular tract would be located but it's very
often removed during dissection so those are the boundaries of the parotid fossa let's do a quick
review so what do you think about this which muscle is an anterior boundary of the parotid
fossa is it a the cricothyroid b the masseter muscle sometimes you'll hear that referred to
as the maseeter muscle but I will always say masseter muscle C omohyoid muscle D sternocleidomastoid
muscle in E trapezius all right so since we just discussed this hopefully this is fresh in
your mind and you know that the correct answer is the masseter muscle which with the ramus of
the mandible which it's that superficial too is going to form that anterior boundary of the
parotid fossa the cricothyroid muscle is quite a ways off and it's off associated with the larynx
the Omo hyoid is off being a strapped muscle and while it's important in many anterior cervical
triangle subdivisions it does not play a role in the parotid fossa the sternocleidomastoid muscle
does play a role in terms of the parotid fossa but it is a posterior boundary not
an anterior boundary and lastly the trapezius isn't correct it is too posterior okay so that
was a nice and quick roundup of the parotid fossa thank you for your time and attention