Sexual Dimorphism of Bizygomatic distance & Maxillary sinus using CT Scan

Abstract

An incomplete skeleton especially skull is a great challenge for Forensic anthropologists for age & sex estimation. But sometimes denser bones are often recovered intact eg. zygomatic bone, maxillary sinus. Therefore this study tries to use the alternate methods for gender estimation by using measurements of denser areas of such unknown skull especially bizygomatic distance.The aim of this study was to investigate whether the bizygomatic distance, AP diameter & width of the maxillary sinus & intermaxillary distance could be used for determination of gender using CT scan. 191 cases were studied, from M.P. region, of which 106 were males and 85 were females. All the measurements were taken from series of CT Head images in axial images on DICOM viewing software in computer.The data was statistically analyzed by using Graph pad prism.Unpaired Student t-test was carried out and calculated for each data separately. Analysis of variance was also done & F-value were calculated. A statistically significant difference with p<0.0001 was observed in the bizygomatic distance with mean±SD of 9.55±0.41cm for male & 9.262±0.52 for female. The strongest correlated variable with bizygomatic distance was the intermaxillary distance (r = 0.3037) in male & AP diameter of sinus (r = 0.5980) in female.We can conclude that Computerized Tomography measurements of bizygomatic distance & maxillary sinus dimensions may be useful to support gender determination in forensic medicine when other methods are inconclusive.