Growth plate
 Developing long bone: cartilage becoming bone (Gray, PD)
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| Field | Medicine |
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| Also known as | epiphyseal plate, physis, plate fusion
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A growth plate (epiphyseal plate) is the cartilage at the ends of long bones that lengthens them in childhood. Fusion (closure, “plates fused”) means that cartilage became bone and that bone will not get longer. Looksmaxxing “are my plates fused” is almost always height — femur, tibia, spine — not a face suture.
Males typically close later than females; wrist/hand X-rays (bone age) are the medical check, not a Discord poll. Limb-lengthening after fusion is surgery with a brutal recovery. This wiki does not sell it as a weekend plan.
Not the same as cranial suture fusion or the midpalatal suture. People say “plates” for all three. See those pages.
Gallery
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Gray 80 — developing femur, cartilage becoming bone
Images from Wikimedia Commons via InstantCommons.