Abstract:

Failure of the closure of two halves of the frontal bone even after the childhood is known as metopic suture. The time of the closure of metopic suture varies from one to eight years and it can persist until adult age. This study was carried out on 160 adult south Indian skulls from the bone collection of the department of Anatomy of the Vinayaka Missions Kirupananda Variyar Medical College, Annapoorna Medical College and Vinayaka Missions College of homoepathy of Vinayaka Missions University – Salem, Tamil Nadu. Metopism was found in 5% of the studied skulls. The incomplete metopic suture was found in 40%. Morphology of sutures varied from linear (17.5%), ‘U’ shaped (15%) and ‘V’ shaped (7.5%), of which linear was found to be most common. 88 skulls (55%) were found to have no metopic suture.

Keywords: Metopic suture, Metopism, Frontal bone, Adult skull