The bone histomorphometric study of the bone growth as revealed by scanning electron microscopy

The present study was made with a view to examining the availability of the SEM observation method for bone histomorphometry. On Wistar strain newborn rats, 3 segments for measurement, i.e. temporal segment, middle segment and sagittal segment were prepared in the central part of the parietal bone endocranial aspects, and the bone surfaces were observed by SEM up to the fifteenth day at intervals of five days from after birth to measure areal volumes of the resorbing bone surface, forming bone surface and intermediate surface and change in the number of osteocyte lacunae in the forming bone surface, using Zeiss IBAS 2000. The results revealed that the resorption process preceded the forming process for the temporal segment from about the tenth day, the forming process preceded the resorbing process from the fifth day for the middle segment and the forming process preceded from the beginning for the sagittal segment. These findings directly reflect an aspect of the growing process of parietal bone, making it possible to regard this SEM observation method as one of the effective approaches to the bone histomorphometry.