Análise quantitativa de ossos suturais em crânios de humanos adultos Quantitative analisys of the sutural bones in adult human skulls

The sutural bones are extranumerical bones inside the sutures of irregular form which frequently appear along the lambdoidea suture. We intend to analyse them quantitatively in adult human skulls, observing their variaton according to the place they appear and the number. Two hundred and seventy-two skulls of both gender and different age were used. They belong to the Bone Museum of the Descriptive and Topographic Anatomy Department of UNIFESP-EPM, which were analysed and photographed to illustrate this research work. The sutural bones were presented in 36% of the skulls in which 39% of the cases they were unilateral, 18% bilateral, 16% average and 27% dispersed. Most of the skulls (49%) had only one sutural bone followed by two (24%). In most cases, the bones were located between the occipital and parietal bones, 36% on the right side of the skull, 38.3% on the left side of the skull and 11.4% average. The sutural bones are inconstant but appear more frequently between the occipital and parietal bones in both sides and they can be unilateral, bilateral or average.