The skeleton consists of two types of bone, cortical and trabecular. Cortical bone is also known as compact or lamellar bone. This type of bone forms the outer shell of long bones and the major portion of the cortex of other bones. Cortical bone accounts for 75 percent of total bone mass. Cortical bone is the major component of tubular bone.
Cortical bone serves principally for support.
It is composed of densely packed mineralized collagen laid down in layers. This type of bone is primarily in the axial skeleton. Trabecular bone is more metabolically active. There are at least three specialized bone cells that are responsible for the synthesis, modeling, and remodeling of bone. Specialized osteocytes affect the constant modeling and remodeling of bone.