Morphologic and Morphometric Evaluation of the Wormian Bones

Wormian (sutural) bones are accessory small bones located on the skull. These bones consist of extra ossification centers around cranial sutures. This study was carried out in 28 dry human skulls with unknown age and sex in the Department of Anatomy, Cukurova University. The aim of the study was to investigate incidence and to determine morphologic and morphometric characteristics of wormian (sutural) bones. Total incidence of wormian bone presence was 42.86 % (n=12) and most of them were located on lambdoid suture (57.14 %). Wormian bones were seen at lambdoid suture at a rate of 62.5 %, occipito-mastoid suture 9.37 %, asterion 18.76 %, lambda 9.37 %, and were not seen on pterion, bregma, parietotemporal, sagittal and coronal sutures. Wormian bones were seen on left side at a rate of 65.62 % and 34.38 % on right side of skull. According to our study, wormian bone shapes were seen as quadrangular (56.26 %), triangular (15.62 %) and irregular (28.12 %). The mean values of wormian bones were as follows; vertical diameter: 12.29±4.48 mm and horizontal diameter: 10.93±4.39 mm. For cephalic index, the result of our study shows that most of our skulls with or without wormian bones belong to dolichocephalic group. Knowledge of variations and characteristics of skull is important for forensic medicine, anatomy, radiology and neurosurgery fields and for literature data or clinical practices.