Skeletal maturity refers to the process that implies the achievement of specialized and highly organized adult status. One of the methods to assess the skeletal maturity is based on changes in the shape of the metaphysis and epiphysis. Nonetheless, changes on the proximal metaphyseal surface of the humerus during growth have not been widely studied. Just some studies based on X-ray material as [1Ogden J.A., Gerald J., Conlogue M.S., Jensen P. Radiology of postnatal skeletal development: The proximal humerus Skeletal Radiology 1978 ;  2 : 153-160 [cross-ref]

Cliccare qui per andare alla sezione Riferimenti] mention something about this topic. The existence of studies based on dry bone humeral metaphysis are even more limited. Taking all this into account, our work proposes an approach to the changes produced in the proximal metaphyseal surface of the humerus during growth. For this aim, we used three different methods in order not only see the biological differences, also to compare different kind of digital processes. Two of them were executed through 2D and 3D geometric morphometrics method using the software TPS and 3D Landmark for digitizing the 2D and 3D landmarks respectively and the Morpho J software for the process of statistical analysis. The remaining one was realized through Shape v.1.3. which is a package of programs for evaluating biological contour shapes based on elliptic Fourier descriptors (EFDs). The sample is composed by 30 humeral metaphyses from the San Pablo collection housed in the Laboratory of Human Evolution in Burgos, Spain. The range age of the individuals goes between 1 to 16 years old. Our results show that there is a pattern in the sequence of shape changes in the proximal humeral metaphysis trough the different age stages in immature individuals. A better understanding of shape changes regarding this biological area can give us some initial clues about how the proximal part of the humerus and the shoulder joint could work during growth.