Modern concepts about of the human talus anatomical variability

The development of modern endoprosthesis constructions for structural and functional prosthesis of ankle joint injuries requires, in the context of a personalized approach to patients, maximum compliance of all articular surfaces and sizes of bone elements with the anatomically original ones. There is an urgent need to clarify the correspondence of specific linear anatomical and morphometric patterns of bones to the configurations of their articular surfaces in order to correlate their linear dimensions in a patient, which are fairly easily obtained by visualization means, with specific patterns of articular surface configurations that are difficult to determine by these means. The purpose of the study: to summarize the available data in the scientific literature on the anatomical variability of the articular facets of the human talus, their applied significance in various fields of biomedical knowledge. The material for the study was the sources of scientific literature from 1889 to 2023 for a period of 135 years. The conducted analysis of scientific literature allows us to conclude, firstly, that classical standard descriptions of the features of its shape and structure, reflecting, first of all and to a greater extent, its parts and apophyses, do not allow us to form the opinion and do not give appropriate ideas about other structural elements that carry greater functional and diagnostic significance. Such elements should be considered its articular surfaces (facets). Secondly, the diversity of their number, topography, general configuration, size of their areas, their combinations and bilateral differences in each person represent unique anatomical patterns characterizing the structural individual basis of his locomotor activity. Thirdly, the analysis of the articular facets of the talus allows, regardless of the period of time in which a person lived, provided that the anatomical integrity is sufficient, to obtain data not only on the individual characteristics of his motor activity and movements, but also on the nature of the habitat, terrain, behavioral features and motor rituals, predisposition to certain types of traumatic injuries of the foot and ankle joint.