Sex determination using odontometric and anthropometric dimensions of 5-6-year-old children

Abstract

Introduction: Forensic dentistry encompasses the handling, examination, and evaluation of dental evidence within a criminal justice context. It deals with the dental evidence obtained from various events such as road accidents, natural calamities, illegal activities, and crime scenes. Studies to assess the sexual dimorphism in children, especially using odontometric and anthropometric measurements, have rarely been published. Therefore we designed this study to evaluate sexual dimorphism using odontometric and anthropometric parameters in children from Tamil Nadu. Materials and methods: The present study was conducted on 63 female and 50 male children aged 5-6 years. Linear measurements for Mesio Distal Width, Inter Canine Distance, Index Finger Length, Ring Finger Length, Foot Breadth and Foot Length were made. Maxillary Canine Index, Mandibular Canine Index, Hand Index, and Foot Index were calculated from these linear measurements. Statistical Package for the Social Science version 20.0 software was used for statistical analysis. Results and conclusion: Sexual dimorphism was evident in most odontometric and anthropometric parameters in children. Using a combination of odontometric and anthropometric parameters in an equation for gender determination in children resulted in better accuracy. We derived two formulae for sex determination using discriminant function analysis. Their accuracies were 75.2% and 81.4%.

Keywords: forensic anthropology; linear measurements; discriminant function analysis