Journal of Forensic and Legal Medicine
Volume 17, Issue 3 , Pages 150-155, April 2010

Identification of sex in Iranian population using patella dimensions

  • Mitra Akhlaghi, MD (Forensic Medicine Specialist, Assistant Professor)
    • ,
  • Ardeshir Sheikhazadi, MD (Forensic Medicine Specialist, Associate Professor)

      Affiliations

    • Corresponding Author InformationCorresponding author. Address: Department of Forensic Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Poursina St., Keshavarz Blvd., Tehran 1417613151, Iran. Tel.: +98 21 22126039, mobile: +98 912 2890395; fax: +98 21 66405588.
    • ,
  • Ali Naghsh, MD (Forensic Medicine Assistant)
    • ,
  • Gholamali Dorvashi, MD (Forensic Medicine Assistant)

Department of Forensic Medicine, School of Medicine, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Poursina St., Keshavarz Blvd., Tehran, Iran

Received 2 December 2008; received in revised form 12 April 2009; accepted 24 November 2009.

Abstract 

Objectives

Heretofore, sex determination has been carried out on skeletal remains to identify individuals in forensic cases and to assess populations in archaeological cases. Since it has been shown that not all bones are found in a forensic case, discriminant function equations should be derived for various bones of the body to assist in sex determination. The aim of this study was to derive discriminant function equations for sex determination from measurements of the patella.

Methods

In a prospective study, dimensions of patella were measured using the fresh cadavers of Iranian population as referred to the Tehran’s Legal Medicine Organization.

Results

A total sample of 113 (57 male, 56 female) patellae were measured using three measurements. Stepwise and direct analyses were performed with the average accuracy of 92.9% for sex classification, thereby making the patella useful for sex determination.

Conclusions

The results of this study confirm the high accuracy of using the measurement of the patella for sex determination. Until further data collected suggests otherwise, the results expected in present study are limited to forensic cases of the Iranian population.

Keywords: Patella, Sex determination, Discriminant analysis, Iranian population, Tehran’s Legal Medicine Organization

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PII: S1752-928X(09)00198-X

doi:10.1016/j.jflm.2009.11.005

Journal of Forensic and Legal Medicine
Volume 17, Issue 3 , Pages 150-155, April 2010

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