Can the patella be used to estimate age in an Indian population?

Abstract

Identification is the individuality of a person. The requirement to establish the identity of the deceased is required in wide categories of cases like in criminal investigation, mass disaster incidents or in war crimes and genocide. There are four basic categories associated with biological identity i.e., sex, age-at-death, stature, and ethnic origin. Age estimation can be determined by teeth, ossification of bones, secondary sex characteristics, general development etc. Age related changes are found in teeth, pubic symphysis, vertebrae, mandible. It can also be done by studying ossification of lower and upper limbs bones, sternum, cranial sutures, hyoid bone, hip bone, sacrum etc. The objective of the present paper is to find out whether the age may be estimated from the dimensions of patella in males and females or is there any impact of age on osteometric mesaurements of patella. The study explored nine parameters of patella bone from both sides in males as well as in females. A total of 199 (49.8%) were taken from males and 201 (50.2%) were obtained from females. Among males, no significant difference in measurements across different age groups was observed on all parameters except Specific Gravity (SG) at both sides which was seen to be higher in younger age group as compared to older age groups (p<0.05). Among females too, statistically no significant difference in mean values of different parameters was observed among different age groups. The findings of the study suggested that, there is no significant effect of age on patellar dimensions except specific gravity in males.