Identification of sex depending on radiological examination of foot and patella

Abstract EN

Forensic anthropology involves the building of an antemortem profile of an individual from skeletal remains.

This includes sex, race determination, age and stature estimation.

Since most bones that are conventionally used for sex determination are often recovered either in a fragmented or incomplete state, it has become necessary to use denser bones that are often recovered intact, e.g., the patella, calcaneus, and talus.

The present work was carried out to investigate the possibility of estimation of sex from some radiological measurements among a known cross section of Egyptian population.

In this study lateral and anteroposterior radiographs of the right foot and knee were made on 160 living unfractured and non pathological individuals comprising 80.males and 80 females aged 25-65 years referred to the Radiology Department of Assiut University Hospital.

Two measurements on right patella (maximum height and maximum width) and two measurements of metatarsal bones (length and mid shaft diameter), were used to determine sex by univariate and multivariate discriminant analysis.

The study revealed that significant sex differences were demonstrated, based on these measurements taken on patella or metatarsal bones.

One function associating two parameters (length and mid shaft) of the third metatarsal bone obtained the highest value of correct sex determination with rate of 100% accuracy.

This study suggests that radiographs of the knee andfoot are a convenient, rapid, cheap and non-invasive means for estimating sex, and also revealed that the discriminant functions carried out by statistical analysis may aid the forensic anthropologist when no other human skeletal ramains suitable for sex determination are available.