The study of Prosopic index of 17-26 year old normal population in Eastern Nepal: Ethnic and gender variation

Abstract

Modern man is inclined to making comparison of various body parts in living or in cadaver for research and knowledge purpose. Political scientists, Joshi and Rose, broadly classify the Nepalese population into three major ethnic groups in terms of their origin: Indo-Nepalese (IND), Tibeto-Nepalese (TN) and Indigenous (IN). This study will provide a data base of facial measurements that will help maxillo-facial surgeons with wide range of facial dimensions which would be helpful in facial reconstruction surgery. The main objectives of this study were to find effect of ethnicity on prosopic index and to compare among both sexes of all ethnic races. The experimental protocol for the cross sectional study was approved by Institutional Ethical Review Board. This study was conducted in normal healthy pure ethnic racial population of sample size of 600 (300 male and 300 female) belonging to17-26 age group in Sunsari and Morang districts of Eastern Nepal. The data was collected among each ethnic race, i.e. Indgenous, Indo-Nepalese and Tibeto-Nepalese each consisting of 200 individuals (100 males and 100 females). Random sampling technique was done for data collection for the respective ethnic races during community visits. The participants were initially oriented to the purpose of the study and assured that anonymity would be maintained. The results showed highly significant difference in face length (FL), face width (FW) and prosopic index (PI) among both sexes of all 3 ethnic races (p < 0.001). The mean PI of people of Eastern Nepal was 88.80; for males 88.47 and for females 89.12 respectively categorised as Mesoprosopic. The PI among Tibeto-Nepalese, Indigenous and Indo-Nepalese were 86.91±0.93 (Mesoprosopic), 88.40±1.18 (Mesoprosopic) and 91.09±0.69 (Leptoprosopic) respectively. Indo-Nepalese presents with long face (Leptoprosopic) while Indigenous and Tibeto-Nepalese have and round face (Mesoprosopic).