[Effect of participation in certain types of sports on the hand bones of adolescents and youth].

The effect of such sports training as boxing, basket-ball and football on the hand skeleton was studied. Roentgenograms of hands in 80 young sportsmen 15--17 years old were examined. Synostosis in the hand bones, in distal portion of the forearm and mineral saturation of the metacarpal bones were studied by the standard method of roentgenodensitometry. It was stated that specific loading on the hand bones as a result of sports training (boxing, basket-ball) produces certain adaptive-compensatory changes in the hand bones development and structure. These changes are manifested as: decreasing rate of synostosis in the distal epiphysis of the forearm and hand bones in young boxers; certain time changes in sinostosis of definite parts of basket-ballers' hand skeleton. Their structural changes are seen as increased mineral saturation in the hand bones (more in boxers and less in basket-ballers) that correspondingly results in their increasing resistivity.