Abstract
BackgroundEarlier studies have addressed the human total cranial vault thickness and generally found no correlation with sex, age or body weight. However, the thickness of the diploe has not been investigated. Our study has determined the diploeic thickness of the human cranial vault using modern autopsy material.MethodsThe diploeic bone thickness was measured in 64 individuals (43 males, 21 females) autopsied at our institute. The thickness was measured by X-raying biopsies trephined at four specific locations on the skull. Complete medical records and pathologic autopsy results were available.ResultsThere was a statistically significant difference in diploeic thickness between males and females in the frontal region only. Diploeic thickness was highly correlated with total cranial vault bone thickness, except for the left euryon in females. Subsequent analyses failed to reveal any correlations between the diploeic thickness and age and height and weight of the individual.ConclusionMales overall have a thicker diploe, albeit this difference is statistically significant only in the frontal region. We could not discern any trends as pertains to diploeic thickness versus age, height or weight. Since the thickness of the diploe may be an important parameter in biomechanical modelling of the cranial vault, this means that the diploe can be built into such models based on the total cranial thickness, except for the frontal region where the sexual dimorphism must be taken into account. Our findings are consistent with previous studies relating the total cranial thickness to the same parameters, in that we found a high correlation between diploeic and total cranial thickness (except at the left euryon for females). Finally, we recommend that future studies try to incorporate CT or MR scan imaging, rather than point sampling, in order to achieve a total assessment of the dimensionalities of the diploe.
Highlights
Earlier studies have addressed the human total cranial vault thickness and generally found no correlation with sex, age or body weight
The software allowed for image calibration and morphometric analyses, whereby we measured the thickness of the diploe; the compact bone of the inner and outer plate; and total cranial thickness
We compared our previous results with the present data
Summary
Earlier studies have addressed the human total cranial vault thickness and generally found no correlation with sex, age or body weight. While the thickness of the human cranial vault has been investigated before, not least in terms of the relationship between cranial thickness and sex, age and general body build [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11], these studies have mostly addressed the total thickness (diploe and the external and internal table). The main incentive for those studies has been to determine whether cranial vault thickness could be used as an indicator of sex and age. A few other studies have addressed the diploeic thickness, but these studies have mainly dealt with issues of cranial reconstructive surgery [13,14]
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