Sagittal Suture of the Human Cranium and the Time of Closing.

The observation of the stage of ossification of the sagittal suture has been adopted as possible approach of age evaluation in anthropology and legal medicine, as area of cranial pathologies: craniosynostosis and scaphocephaly and as diagnosis resource in tomographies. Regarding it, we found many controversies in the specialized literature, thus we decided to accomplish this research with the following objectives: to examine the ossification of the external surface of the sagittal suture, observing eventual differences due to age, sex and ethnic group. Our material consists of 88 dry craniums of variable ages, both sexes belonging to the ethnic groups: white and black. In that material we observed that: with progression of age, the relation between age and stage of ossification of the sagittal suture stops existing. The statistical analysis didn't demonstrate significant differences between sexes and ethnic groups in the stages of ossification of the sagittal suture. The ossification of the sagittal suture starts developing from the posterior third. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]