Age, sex and body mass index in relation to calvarial diploe thickness and craniometric data on MRI
Introduction
It is critical to determine sex, body mass and age of the individual from the skull in forensic medicine and anthropology. Any information that can be identified might be important when searching for human remains, unidentified bodies or in cases with interpersonal violence with cranial trauma. We tried to assess whether cranial fragments could be used in sexing and aging otherwise unidentified human remains. The prior studies were on calvarial thickness and most of them were insufficient due to small sample size and limited medical data on the subjects.
The skull is diploeic bone consisting of two cortical plates – the internal and external laminae – sandwiching a layer of trabecular bone known as the diploe [1]. The cranial vault serves as a linchpin for the functional matrix hypothesis of skull growth [2]. There have been earlier studies on the relationship between the calvarial thickness and age, sex, height and weight of the individual. The results have been conflicting [3], [4], [5], [6], [7], [8], [9], [10], [11], [12], [13], [14], [15], [16], [17], [18]. In a relatively new study on the issue, not only was calvarial thickness assessed, but diploe thickness as well. They found a statistically significant difference in diploeic thickness between males and females in the frontal region only. According to that study, diploeic thickness was highly correlated with total cranial vault bone thickness, except for the left euryon in females [3].
Our purpose in this study was to evaluate whether a relationship existed between the diploeic bone thickness measured from glabella, bregma, lambda, opisthocranion, and euryon regions and the sex, age and body mass index (BMI) of the individual. Glabella–opisthocranion, vertex–basion, euryon–euryon, basion–opisthion lengths were also determined for the same purpose.
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Subject population
A total of 179 subjects (F/M: 99/80; mean age: 43.42 ± 17.58, age range: 4–85) were consecutively enrolled during a two month period (from November to December 2007). The study was conducted in a Caucasian population. They had a cranial MRI exam due to neurological symptoms ranging in severity from headache to sensorimotor deficit. Subjects with a known preexisting bone disease such as tumor, metastasis, or metabolic disorder were excluded from the study. The subjects on drug therapy that may
Results
A total of 107 subjects (F/M: 59/48; mean age: 45.05 ± 15.28; age range: 21–81) were included in the study. The mean body mass index was 25.51 ± 4.44 [17.5–41]. According to their BMI values, 2 subjects were underweight, 56 were normal, 32 were overweight and 17 were obese. According to their age, there were 21 subjects aged 21–30, 28 subjects aged 31–40, 19 subjects aged 41–50, 22 subjects aged 51–60, and 17 subjects above 61 years of age. There was a statistically significant linear correlation
Discussion
Our study showed a statistically significant linear correlation between age and the diploe thickness from glabella, bregma, lambda, opisthocranion, right and left euryon. There was a statistically significant difference in diploeic thickness between males and females in the glabella region only. However, there was sexual dimorphism at all craniometric points including the distance between glabella–opisthocranion, vertex–basion, basion–opisthion, euryon–euryon and calvarial volume. These
Conclusion
A standard cerebral MRI examination would be sufficient to obtain anthropological landmarks and craniometric data. According to this study, it might be possible to obtain some information on age, sex and body mass index of the individual by determining the diploeic thickness and some specific craniometric data. There is a linear correlation between age and the diploe thickness from glabella, bregma, lambda, opisthocranion, right and left euryon. Gender has an impact on craniometric measurements
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