Sex Determination by Evaluation of Foramen Magnum on Computer Tomography Scanning Among Sri Lankan Population

Abstract

Introduction: Sex determination using human skeletal remains is a challenging task for forensic practitioners and foramen magnum is used at lesser extents for this purpose. The aim of this study was to determine the sex by evaluating the parameters of the foramen magnum in a Sri Lankan population using computed tomography (CT).Methods: CT images of 300 individuals aged between 20 to 60 years, comprising 146 males (49%) and 154 females (51%), obtained from the Radiology Department of National Hospital, Kandy, Sri Lanka were retrieved for the study. Four parameters of the foramen magnum, namely length, width, circumference, and area, were measured/calculated using the RadiAnt Dicom Viewer 2022.1 software and analyzed using SPSS 26 software.Results: The analyses indicated that all four measurements were significantly higher in males than in females. All the parameters showed positive correlations with each other. Discriminant function analysis indicated that length was the most dimorphic single parameter for males, with an accuracy of 76%, and for females, the length also provided an accuracy of 71%.Conclusion: Results of this study show that the parameters of the foramen magnum, mainly the length, can be used for sex determination. By combining other parameters of sexing human bones, more accurate results for sex determination can be obtained.