Determination of sex using anthropometric measurements of clavicle - An autopsy based study

Abstract

Skeleton plays an important role in identification as they often survive the morphological alterations, taphonomic destructions, decay and mutilations. Clavicle which is a small long bone, has been studied with a view to determine age and sex. The studies in this aspects are minimal, this study aims to throw more light in this regard. The main objective of the study was to determine the sex of the study subjects using anthropometric measurements of the clavicle. The study was a cross sectional study done at the mortuary wing of the department of Forensic Medicine. Thirty male and thirty female dead bodies were studied after getting written informed consent from near relative of the deceased. Right clavicle was collected from each case, dried and twelve parameters from each were measured. Statistical analysis was done using SPSS 16.0. The various anthropometric measurements of the clavicle like clavicular length (CL), articular length (AL), mid shaft circumference (CC), weight of the clavicle (WC), sternal diameter (SD), acromial diameter (AD), middle diameter (MD) and conoid diameter (CD) had statistically significant difference among males and females. From the ROC curve plotted the selection points to distinguish male and female clavicles for various parameters like Clavicular length, Mid shaft circumference, Articular length, Weight of the clavicle, Sternal diameter, Middle diameter and Acromial diameter had high sensitivity and specificity.