Nawaz Ahmed, S K (2007) A study of sex determination using the hyoid bone. Masters thesis, Madras Medical College, Chennai.
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Abstract
INTRODUCTION : The identification of unknown remains is very important. In cases such as victims of aircraft accidents, burnt bodies, mutilated bodies and in exhumation, when unknown remains are found, sex and age should be determined for establishing the identity of the individual. When bones are sent for Medicolegal Examination, some of them become very helpful for determination of sex of the subject. If the whole skeleton is available then sex can be determined accurately in all the cases.19 When skull and pelvis are available accurate result may be obtained in 98% of the cases. With pelvis alone the rate of accuracy is 95%, with skull alone 90%, and with long bones alone 80-85%. Of all the bones of the body, pelvis (hip bones and sacrum), skull, mandible, sternum with manubrium and femur help maximum to know the sex of the subject. In addition to the bones described already, scapula, tibia, vertebra, ribs can also tell about the sex of a person. The hyoid bone is of considerable interest in forensic medicine owing to its susceptibility to fracture during manual strangulations. For example, the presence of a fractured hyoid bone is often of great importance in cases involving badly decomposed bodies and skeletal remains lacking soft tissue evidence of neck injury. The shape of the hyoid bone may influence its susceptibility to fracture and hyoid fractures are frequently confused with normal variation in both clinical and forensic settings. Although the relationship between hyoid bone shape and fracture pattern figures prominently in criminal investigations of strangulations, few quantitative data exist on age and sex differences in hyoid morphology. The first reported study on sexual dimorphism in the hyoid bone was by Miller et al. in 1998. AIMS AND OBJECTIVES : In the present study an analysis of sexual dimorphism of the hyoid bone has been attempted by making use of : 1) The weight, 2) Three morphometric parameters : (a) the vertical height of the body of the hyoid bone at its midpoint, (b) the transverse width of the body of the hyoid bone, (c) the maximal cornual length of the hyoid bone. MATERIALS AND METHODS : A metric study and estimation of the weight of hyoid bones obtained from medicolegal postmortems (from cases of the Institute of Forensic Medicine, Madras Medical College and Government general hospital, Chennai), was conducted on a total of 200 individuals- 100 male and 100 female adults varying in age from 18-60 years. Preparation of the bones: The hyoid bones were taken from the cadavers and the soft tissue dissected using a scalpel and forceps. The residual soft tissue was removed by treatment of the bone with antiformin solution for a period of 48 hours. The details of preparation of antiformin solution is as follows: Three litres of Antiformin solution was prepared by mixing 150 grams of sodium carbonate in 250 ml of water, 100 grams of bleaching powder in 750 ml of water and 1000 ml of 15% sodium hydroxide in 1000 ml of water. After antiformin treatment to remove the soft tissues, the bones were washed with water and then air dried in the shade for a period of one week. Figure 1 shows a male and a female hyoid bone after removal of soft tissues using this procedure. The bones were then weighed and the various metric measurements made using a vernier calipers. For weighing the bones a POCKET SCALE mini jeweller’s balance was used (Reg. No. A602751, vendor - SR scales, Chennai). This was a battery operated electronic device and had an accuracy of 0.01 grams (correct to 10 milligrams weight) and could measure upto a maximum of 50.00 grams. A stainless steel vernier calipers was used with an accuracy of 0.01 cm. Figure II-A & B illustrates the estimation of weight using the POCKET SCALE mini jeweller’s balance for a male and a female hyoid bone. Figure III – A & B illustrates the estimation of the vertical height of the body of the hyoid bone using the vernier calipers. CONCLUSION : The following were the conclusions that could be drawn from this study: 1. There is a definite sexual dimorphism in the hyoid bone and the extent was demonstrated in this study using four parameters. The sexual dimorphism is most marked in the vertical height of the body followed by weight, next the average mean cornual length and finally in the transverse width of the body. The dimorphism is constant across the age spectrum for all the parameters except for weight which shows increased dimorphism in the age groups of 40-46 years. This could be explained on the basis of the hormonal changes that are seen in the post-menopausal females which fall in this group. 2. The findings in this study confirm the results obtained in the best previous study to date by Miller et al. An improvement was made on this study by adding weight as one of the parameters studied. The dimorphism observed in our study was greater than that in the study by Miller et al. The conclusion drawn from this observation is that the dimorphism in the hyoid bone is greater in Asian Indians than in the Occidental population as employed by Miller et al. 3. It is possible to utilize the various indices obtained in this study to determine the sex of the bone, given a situation where a hyoid bone from an unknown subject is obtained by measuring the various parameters. When more than one parameter is used it is possible to determine the sex of the individual to a reasonable degree of accuracy. In such cases, the vertical height of the body of the hyoid bone should be used as one of the parameters in conjunction with other metric measurements as the dimorphism is more marked in this parameter and more so in the age group falling between 40-46 years.
| Item Type: | Thesis (Masters) |
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| Uncontrolled Keywords: | sex determination ; hyoid bone. |
| Subjects: | MEDICAL > Forensic Medicine |
| Depositing User: | Subramani R |
| Date Deposited: | 27 Feb 2018 13:42 |
| Last Modified: | 27 Feb 2018 13:42 |
| URI: | http://repository-tnmgrmu.ac.in/id/eprint/5882 |
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