Abstract
BackgroundThe Mandibular Canine Index (MCI) comprises a method of sex estimation by teeth that presents controversial results in the literature.Main bodyThis systematic review aims to expose whether MCI can be used as a method of reliable sex estimation. A literature search was performed using the keywords “canine,” “sex,” “gender,” “determination,” “estimation,” “dimorphism,” “assessment,” “forensic” in the databases Pubmed, Scopus, Lilacs, Scielo, and Web of Science. In addition, manual searches were carried out on the reference lists of the selected articles to cover the largest number of articles of interest as possible. Studies that performed the measurements only on maxillary canines, scientific conferences abstract books, case reports and literature reviews were excluded. The assessment of methodological quality and risk of bias was carried out based on a checklist for cross-sectional studies and another for accuracy studies. Thus, 53 articles were selected, 13 of which were accurate and 40 were cross-sectional. All accuracy articles were assessed as low risk. Among cross-sectional articles, seven were considered to be of low risk, 31 of moderate risk, and two of high risk. The accuracy of the sex estimate by MCI was verified and, despite varying among studies, the minimum and maximum values found were, respectively, 20% and 87.5% for women and 40.6% and 94% for men.ConclusionThe accuracy of the MCI was variable and should be used with caution and as an auxiliary method of sex estimation.
Highlights
Material and methods Search strategy The searches were conducted on September 20th, 2019
The use of teeth in sex estimation is motivated by the resistance that these organs present, which would be useful in the identification of extremely fragmented bodies or incomplete bones (Acharya et al 2011; Azevedo et al 2019; Vijayan et al 2019)
When applying Mandibular Canine Index (MCI) in different populations, divergent levels of accuracy were found (Table 8), and information related to monomorphism and reverse dimorphism of canine teeth as a result of human evolution was reported (Boaz and Gupta 2009; Prabhu and Acharya 2009), which makes the use of MCI in forensic practice as an even more dubious method of sex estimation
Summary
The construction of the victim’s biological profile comprises an important stage of the human identification process in which knowledge of forensic anthropology is applied in order to reduce the number of potential suspects (Francisco et al 2013). This initial screening is performed when primary identification methods need to be applied to bodies with an advanced state of decomposition, carbonized, fragmented or skeletonized, and it. Estimating sex, in turn, is important because it is an information that will guide the methods to be applied in estimating the other parameters that will form the victim’s biological profile (Krishan et al 2016; Rösing et al 2007). This systematic review aims to answer the following question: the MCI can be applied as a reliable method for sex estimation of an unknown person?
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