| Description: |
Objective: To investigate the degree of fusion (patency) amongcranial sutures in human dry skulls in the Anatolia.Methods: One-hundred fifty-eight human dry skulls that wereaccepted as adults according to the teeth eruption weremacroscopically examined and photographed with Canon 400B(55 mm objective). The grades of fusion of coronal, sagittal, andlambdoid were quantitatively analyzed by using the modified gradingscale. According to the extent of patency, the sutures were graded asgrade-0 (open), grade-1 (fused but not obliterated), grade-2 (50% obliterated), and grade-4 (100%obliterated). The authors determined and compared the rate foreach grade of sutural patency on coronal, sagittal, and lambdoidsutures.Results: The cranial sutures of 4 cranii (4/158; 2.53%) had grade-4fusion, whereas there were no any cranii with sutures of grade-0 fusion.The number of each grade of fusion among cranial sutures of 158 skulls,in descending order, was as follows: 171 (grade-3), 145 (grade-1), 133(grade-2), and 25 (grade-4). The grade-4 fusion was significantly lessobserved than the others. The grade-1 and grade-4 fusion of lambdoidsutures were established as the most (66/41.8%) and least (5/3.2%)common fusions among cranial sutures, respectively. The frequenciesof each grade of fusion for each cranial suture were determined in adescending order: coronal (grade-3> 2> 1> 4), sagittal (grade-3> 2> 1> 4), and lambdoid sutures (grade-1> 3> 2> 4). Thefrequency of grade-1 fusion of lambdoid suture (66/41.8%) wassignificantly different when compared with coronal (39/24.7%) andsagittal sutures (40/25.3%), respectively.Conclusion: The grades of fusion (or sutural patency) vary amongcranial sutures. |