Morphology and fracture effects of the hamulus pterygoid: a literature review of the last 49 years

The hamulus pterygoid consists in a relevant anatomical structure, important for fixation of several tendons and muscles, keeping the integrity of soft palate and pharynx. A literature review was conducted in order to investigate the morphology and effect of hamulus pterygoid fracture in clinical manifestation and its relationships with other orofacial components. A literature search was conducted, using Pubmed and Bireme data bases, and covering the time period 1970 to 2019. The Key words for the research were hamulus pterygoid, pterygoid fracture and hamulus pterygoid fracture, resulting in 440 articles, being 41 initials selected. Among them, just 31 were included in the analysis and 08 of the articles were not available through our library system or were in volumes before our holdings began. The remaining were excluded when they weren’t in English idiom, or when didn’t talk about morphological, functional or damages in the hamulus pterygoid. In this context, it may be observed a scarce number of works about the hamulus pterygoid, with doubts in relation to its morphology and functional aspects and how diagnostic its lesions and consequences.