Morphological Characterization of Femur and Parietal Bone Mineral of Rats at Different Ages

Some microscopy studies on the mineral phase of bone have been carried out either utilizing Optical or Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), generally around 1000x magnification, to observe the interaction between cells and bone mineral. Other studies have been utilizing Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM), generally around 1000000x magnification, to observe the fundamental particles that form bone mineral. The literature lacks works that utilize Scanning Electron Microscopy around 10000x magnification, particularly suitable for the study of structures composed by the aggregation of fundamental particles. The objective of this work was to study the morphologic differences between the mineral phase of femur and parietal bone of Wistar rats. Observation of the micrographs showed that the microscopic morphology of the mineral phase of femur was very similar to that of the parietal bone. It was also possible to notice that the morphology of the mineral phases varied with age, yet this variation was practically the same for the material obtained from the two types of bones.