Sex Determination of the Mandible Focusing on the Ramus

Kim, Yoo Ri; Lee, Ju Young; Song, Wu Chul; Koh, Ki Seok

Abstract

The mandible is the largest and strongest bone in the face. The mandible retains its structure better than other skeletons in the forensic and physical anthropologic field. It can be used to distinguish the ethnic groups, genders and ages. However, it is often discovered as a part, not complete form. Therefore, it would be needed that sex determination must be performed using a part of mandible. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the possibility for sex determination of the mandible focusing on the ramus in Korean. We examined 92 Korean mandibles (68 males and 24 females). The range of age was 16~92 years (mean 60 years). The mandibles were photographed from the both lateral sides at standard position. Nine angular and fifteen linear items were measured by the computer-based image analyzer. Statistical analyses were performed using the Microsoft Excel and SPSS 12.0 software. The vertical height of the coronoid process was greater than that of the condylar process in almost cases (81.6%) regardless of sex. Three angular (gonion-condylion posterior, coronion-condylion, coronion-condylion but passing gonion) and two linear (gonion-condylion, gonion-coronion) items had statistically significant difference between both sexes. Five variables were used in making a series of discriminant functions for which an accuracy of 86.6% was attained.