Development of a novel method for measuring the arc length of curving skeleton

摘要

The purpose of this study was to develop a novel method to precisely measure the arc length of curving skeleton. We developed a formula by using differential equation and the arc length of bending bones can be calculated according to the chord length and height. With this method, we measured the coronal arc length of parietal bones in fetus. Our results showed that the arc length calculated using the formula was not significantly different from those obtained by manual measurements (P>0.05). We concluded that this method was simple, precise and can be used to measure the ossification length of any fetus parietal bones with less than 180° curvature or the arc length of bones in other parts of humans.