Estimation of age of the person from progression of closure of sagittal suture as assessed by computed tomography

Abstract

When an individual has surpassed the growth phase of life, fewer parameters are left for estimation of age. One such parameter is cranial sutures ossification. This study was conducted to find the feasibility of age estimation from sagittal suture using cross-sectional multidetector computed tomography. This study was done on live patients of known age who presented for computed tomography indicated for other conditions such as headache, epilepsy, etc. The sagittal suture was reconstructed and divided into 4 segments of equal length. A block of 15 mm was randomly chosen from each segment and fifteen cross-sectional images at 1 mm interval were viewed in the coronal plane to assign a stage value (0–6) as defined by Harth et al. Mean scores of these stage values and their correlation coefficients were calculated for the age of the individuals. We found a significant correlation of sagittal suture ossification with the age of the individual. Although our study has yielded wide prediction intervals which preclude its application in forensic casework, still this method can be used in conjunction with other methods of age estimation of adults.