This article describes the incidence of mineralization in the stylohyoid ligament complex (SLC) in a sample of the patient population of the Meikai University School of Dentistry. The age of the patients ranged from 3 to 89 years, and a total of 800 orthopantomographs of the patients were analyzed. There was a sharp increase in mineralization during the first three decades of life, from 38% in the first decade to 90.5% in the third. No relationship could be established between the extent of mineralization and increasing patient age thereafter. The SLC could be detected in 93.8% of the adult patients who were over 20 years of age. The results suggest that orthopantomography is one of the best methods to observe the SLC. A classification of the radiographic appearance of the SLC based on three types of complexes -type A: normal type B: elongated and type C: very elongated- is proposed. According to the classification, among adult patients, type A represented 73.9% type B 18.7% and type C 1.2%. Among all patients, the incidence of elongated SLC was 19.9%. This classification is easy and useful to diagnose an elongated SLC clinically.
