Blunt trauma to the head

Abstract

The determination of origin of the skeletal remains collected from the crime scene is an important and tough task. Different craniofacial measurements and indices can be useful for this purpose. When the dry skull collection is not available with all the data regarding the identification of skull, different radiographic techniques like cephalography, CT scan etc. can be used to study the morphological and metrical traits of the skull.In this study 100 patients were included having Gujarati origin, age ranging between 21 years to 40 years and without having any injury to the skull. The volume rendered images of the brain and face, taken by a CT scan machine, were examined for different craniofacial measurements. These measurements were further used to calculate five craniofacial indices namely morphological facial index, Kollmann׳s upper facial index, nasal index, orbital index and foramen magnum index.The classification of the population according to the indices revealed that 64% of people are Leptoprosopic to Hyperleptoproscopic, 53% of people are Lepten to Hyperlepten, 78% of people are Hypsiconch, 38% of people are Chamaerhinae and 44% of people are having narrow foramen magnum.The comparison of these indices among other Indian and non-Indian origins׳ people showed a significant variation in the values. Thus it can be concluded that craniofacial indices are helpful parameters for the determination of origin of the skeletal remains.