Study of Metopic Suture in the Adult Human Skulls of North India

The present study was undertaken to observe the incidence of Metopic suture and Metopism in the adult human skulls of North India. For this purpose, 1020 skulls were observed, belonging to the Anthropology Museum of Department of Anatomy, GSVM Medical College Kanpur. Metopic suture was found to be present in the midline, in altogether 184 skulls (18.04%); out of which complete persistent Metopic suture (or Metopism) was reported in 36 skulls (3.5%) and partially obliterated suture in 148 skulls (14.6%)- it was present in the lower part of Frontal bone in 142 skulls (14%), in the upper part in 4 skulls (0.38%) and in the middle part in 2 skulls (0.19%). The upper end of Metopic suture was observed to meet the median sagittal suture, end-to-end, at Bregma in 6 skulls (15%) while in the rest of 34 skulls (85%), the upper end of Metopic suture failed to meet the anterior end of median sagittal suture and the deflection ranged between 12 mm to 2 mm. Mean suture length was computed to be 128 mm.