Sex Determination Potential from Canine Tooth Dimensions

Abstract

Aims:• This study was conducted to know sex determination potential from mesiodistal dimensions of permanent canines. • To find out the average size of canines in males and females of south Indian population. • To compare the findings with National and International Studies. Study Design: The subjects were selected based on the inclusion and exclusion criteria set forth for the study. Measurements of mesiodistal widths of the four canines were made on the dental casts of each of the 600 subjects with Digital caliper with 0.01 resolution and subjected to statistical analysis. Statistical methods used were statistical mean, standard deviation, Student's t-test (p< 0.05), step-wise discriminant analysis and cross validated discriminant analysis using SPSS version 11.00.

Sexual dimorphism in permanent mandibular and maxillary canines of Sri Lankan Sinhalese population

“…The present study also noted significant differences of all the measurements (mesio-distal, Labio-lingual, crown height) of the sexes, which supports the literature on sexual dimorphism. [1,2,4,8,9,10,12,13,14,15,16,23,24,25] although some studies reported no significant sex difference in tooth dimensions. [26,27] Dimorphism was greater for mandibular teeth than for maxillary teeth as greatest percentage of sexual dimorphism demonstrated for mesiodistal width in right mandibular canine followed by mesiodistal width of left mandibular canine in the present study.…”

“…Identification of highly damaged dead bodies such as burnt human remains, in explosions, in aviation accidents, immersed human remains in train crash, suicidal attacks, wars, massacre and hidden decomposed bodies in mass graves, cannot be verified using typical methods, as these bodies are beyond recognition in most of the time after these incidents. [1,2] Therefore, identification of these dead bodies is paramount important especially in medico-legal death investigations such as criminals and other relevant lawsuits that do not have any direct evidence for an unbiased judgment [1] .…”

“…Although the reliability of these methods is varying, and the DNA technique is the most accurate one among those methods. [1] However, the DNA technique cannot be used for each and every case, as it is an expensive method for countries like Sri Lanka.…”

“…In those instances, forensic medicine as well as forensic odontology is useful to determine the gender of the individuals. [1] Identification from skeletal remains, DNA analysis from biological evidence and fingerprint analysis are some of the methods that are being used in forensic medicine to identify the individuals and determine the gender. [7] Bite mark comparison and measurements of teeth dimension are also being used in forensic odontology to determine the gender of the individuals.…”

“…The number of studies has investigated the degree of sexual dimorphism using canine dimensions in an attempt to determine the sex and have demonstrated that the canine dimensions in males are greater than in females and that gender can be determined with the considerable accuracy from these measurements and vary between different ethnic and population groups. [1,2,4,8,9,10,12,13,14,15,16] Sri Lankan population belonged to Caucasian and composed of having different ethnic groups. Despite the need for such studies, sexual dimorphism in tooth dimension has scarcely been discussed for the Sri Lankan population except the study that has been reported on sexual dimorphism, and tooth size variation in the permanent dentition of the Uva Bintenna Veddas of Sri Lanka.…”