Nasal bone

Last revised by Daniel J Bell on 21 Dec 2022

The nasal bones are small paired oblong upper central facial bones placed side by side between the frontal processes of the maxilla, jointly forming the nasal ridge.

Gross anatomy

The nasal bone has two surfaces:

The four borders of the roughly quadrangular nasal bone are:

Attachments

Ossification

The nasal bones ossify from a single center which appears early in the third month within the cartilaginous nasal capsule, which can be assessed during the 12th-week prenatal scan for nasal bone appearance. Its absence is associated with Down syndrome.

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