Morphometric assessment of mental foramen for gender prediction using panoramic radiographs in the West Bengal population – A retrospective digital study

Abstract

Background: The gender testimony is of vital importance in forensic science when only craniofacial fragments are only the remains. Mandible exhibits a high level of distinct position among the genders. Different studies have well proved that mandible shows the gender dimorphism in many morphological features such as mandible height, gonial angle, bigonial width, and bicondylar width. The anatomical position of mental foramen can also be used to differentiate between gender and such skeleton metric analysis done on radiographs is found to be of more accuracy. Aim: This study was conducted to assess the precision of mental foramen as a landmark for gender differentiation. Materials and Methods: Three hundred panoramic radiographs were selected for mental foramen analysis. Distance from the tangential line drawn to basal bone mandible to tangential line drawn to upper and lower borders of mental foramen on bilateral sides was measured and recorded. The data cataloged were subjected to statistical analysis. Results: The distance between mental foramen to basal bone of mandible was more in male than that to females on the bilateral aspect, which was statistically significant. Conclusion: Mental foramen can be considered as a radiographic landmark to determine gender in the West Bengal population of India.

Sex determination by morphometric analysis of the mental foramen from digital panoramic radiography

“…In the present study, measurements and analysis were done concerning only one side of the mandible of each patient. It was reported by Ghouse et al, Chandra et al, Rani et al and Naroor et al that there was no significant difference between the measurements taken from the right and left sides of the mandible of the subjects involved in their studies (5,9,12,20) . In addition, Apaydin et al and Alias et al were among the authors who conducted the study on only one side of the mandible (3,26) .…”

“…There is no statistical significant difference between the locations of the mental foramen on both sides of the mandible (5,9,12,14,(16)(17)(18)(19)(20) , so the distances from any side can be used. The measurements were done on one side of the mandible image as follows:…”

“…The mental foramen is considered a stable landmark on radiographs with its location remains almost the same despite the alveolar bone resorption as it shows a stable relation with the inferior border of the mandible throughout life. Hence, the mental foramen has been considered of a high degree of accuracy and validity as an indicator for sex determination (2,6,8,(10)(11)(12)(13) .…”

Radiomorphometric of the Jaw for Gender Prediction: A Digital Panoramic Study

“…Recently, there were many gender dimorphism studies by using metric parameters with reliable results. 11,13,14,15 Therefore, we can apply gender dimorphism on the gender determination skeletons by using discriminant analysis. The discriminant function analysis in our studies is used to quantify the assessment of the jaw morphology.…”

“…Dental practitioners usually use a panoramic radiograph to evaluate vital structures of the jaw, to evaluate jaw morphology as soon as the ages change in the different genders, and it represents the bilateral anatomy of the jaw. 10,11,12 Traditional morphological methods depended on the anthropologist subjectivity understanding in sexual dimorphism of the jaw, it caused a significant difference among the observers. 13 Therefore; we needed to devise the reliably discriminant analytical methods for dimorphic fragment bones.…”