Forensic Facial Reconstruction: Relationship Between the Alar Cartilage and Piriform Aperture

Abstract

During forensic facial reconstruction, facial features may be predicted based on the parameters of the skull. This study evaluated the relationships between alar cartilage and piriform aperture and nose morphology and facial typology. Ninety-six cone beam computed tomography images of Brazilian subjects (49 males and 47 females) were used in this study. OsiriX software was used to perform the following measurements: nasal width, distance between alar base insertion points, lower width of the piriform aperture, and upper width of the piriform aperture. Nasal width was associated with the lower width of the piriform aperture, sex, skeletal vertical pattern of the face, and age. The current study contributes to the improvement of forensic facial guides by identifying the relationships between the alar cartilages and characteristics of the biological profile of members of a population that has been little studied thus far.

Forensic Facial Reconstruction: A Systematic Review of Nasal Prediction Techniques

“…Eleven studies proposed new methods or new interpretations about the nasal reconstruction techniques in forensic context , while only six studies compared existing methods .…”

“…1). Fourteen studies were included in the qualitative analysis (4)(5)(6)(7)(8)(9)(10)(11)(12)(13)(14)(15)17,18). Seven studies were included in the quantitative analysis (5,6,10,11,(15)(16)(17), and only one of them was not in the qualitative analysis (16).…”

“…In total, there are fifteen nasal reconstruction methods described in the literature (4)(5)(6)(7)(8)(9)(10)(11)(12)(13)(14)18), two of them seek to estimate specifically nasal width (4,12) and one estimates the nasal projection including its width (10). Only one study established a margin of acceptable distortion, based on data from the literature, between the estimated and the actual measurement of the nose (5).…”

“…Over the years, different techniques for estimating the nose were proposed (4)(5)(6)(7)(8)(9)(10)(11)(12)(13)(14), tested, and compared (6,10,11,(15)(16)(17). However, it is not observed uniformity related to ancestry of the samples, making these studies to present different results for the same technique since ancestry has a significant role in facial features morphology.…”

Forensic Facial Approximation: Study of the Nose in Brazilian Subjects

“…So far, however, there has been little discussion about the nasal width and its relationship with hard tissues . The nasal cartilages (wing of the nose) influences the lower third of the nose's shape in both front and profile views .…”