[Environmental pollution with fluoride compounds and their influence on children health].

Data of hygienic studies of air and soil during last 20 years have confirmed their correlating relationship with the general morbidity and a group of musculoskeletal diseases in children living in cities with the technogenic pollution of the environment. Their bones were established to grow unevenly and disproportionally, in 76% of children there have been violations in the development and growth of bones. The results of X-ray examination of hand bones in children and adolescents in the Irkutsk and Shelekhov cities are presented.

[Femoral bone morphogenesis in human fetuses in the area of environmental fluoride pollution].

The aim of this study was to determine the peculiarities of femoral bone osteogenesis in human fetuses in the areas with different levels of environmental pollution with fluoride compounds (the city of Irkutsk and the town of Shelekhov). The histological structure of femoral bones was studied in 70 fetuses aged 15-16, 19-20, 22-25 and 27-29 gestational weeks. Morphometric methods were used to evaluate the number of blood vessels per total area of epiphysis, the length of endochondral trabeculae, the thickness of hypertrophic and columnar cartilage zones, diaphysis wall and its trabeculae thickness, the thickness of endochondral trabeculae merging with the diaphysis wall, and of the bone growing on the epiphysis.

[Peculiarities of wrist bone growth as a criterion for determining the biological age of children living under different environmental conditions].

The paper had the objective to study growth dynamics of short tubular wrist bones in children aged from 5 to 16 years and residing in the cities of Shelekhov and Irkutsk. The growth rate in the girls from Irkutsk was shown to be fairly uniform and proportional; in the boys, it substantially increased at the age of 10-11 and 15 years. In the boys living in Shelekhov, the bone growth became activated at the age of 9 and 15 years.