The trabecular structure of developing human mandible.

In this paper we tried to analyse in quantitative terms the differences in trabecular structure of human mandibles 8, 10 and 12 weeks old. The analysis was performed on decalcified Sirius-red stained trabeculae, photographed in polarised light. The data obtained from Fourier transforms of scanned pictures were evaluated by discriminant analysis to show the differences between the analysed stages of development. Also, various parts of the mandible were compared because the clinical experience shows that the frequency of pathological changes is different in different parts of mandible bone. The complexity of trabecular structure of bone samples was measured by fractal dimension. It is concluded that this quantitative approach is reliable and, in the future, could be used for physiological and pathological analyses of bone biopsies.