Abstract
BackgroundIn the absence of cadaveric tissues, forensic simulation, trauma modelling, and cranial surgical training necessitates a surrogate for the human calvaria. This study investigates the validity of Bos taurus scapulae as a proxy for human frontal bones by comparing the laminar and cancellous bone thickness, as well as the bone mineral density (BMD) of cadaveric frontal bones and adult Bos taurus scapulae.ResultsThis study aimed to validate the bovine scapulae as a valid proxy for forensic experiments, which benefit researchers and investigators who need to recreate forensic scenarios where synthetic proxies are found unsuitable due to their non-viscoelastic nature and cadaveric human models are unavailable due to ethical restrictions. Our results identified different total thicknesses of the relative bones, but non-different cortical measurements between human frontal bone and bovine scapulae. The bone mineral density is similar between both groups.ConclusionThis study has found Bos taurus scapulae to be a suitable proxy for human frontal bones as it has a similar morphology with regard to thickness and structure as well as a comparable density. However, there is a significant difference between the cancellous bone, and therefore, the overall thickness.
Highlights
In an attempt to enhance ballistic, forensic, and surgical human calvarial research with increased restrictions on cadaveric tissue, there has been a global increase in the use of polyurethane sheets as a proxy for human flat bone (Taylor & Kranioti, 2018)
The only comparisons exist for long bones, with Fletcher et al identifying that juvenile Bos taurus long bones were a suitable proxy to human long bones with similar densities identified utilizing Computed Tomography (CT) (Fletcher et al, 2018).This study used the areas identified by Taylor et al as those comparable to human frontal bone thicknesses to assess (Taylor et al, 2020) the validity of an animal model for human bone, the morphological similarity, as well as the bone mineral density (BMD) of Bos taurus scapulae
Bos taurus scapulae do seem to be an appropriate proxy to human crania for ballistic testing, which can be received from butcheries without the need of sacrificing an animal for this purpose and beyond ethical restrictions and restraints when using human donors and material
Summary
In an attempt to enhance ballistic, forensic, and surgical human calvarial research with increased restrictions on cadaveric tissue, there has been a global increase in the use of polyurethane sheets as a proxy for human flat bone (Taylor & Kranioti, 2018). For cranial flat bone assessment Mahoney utilized Equus caballus (horse) scapulae (Mahoney, 2018) and Rickman and Smith used Bos taurus (cow) scapulae in their comprehensive Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) study (Rickman & Smith, 2014) because of the many similarities to human crania with large quadruped mammals which are described to have comparable thicknesses to human crania (Smith et al, 2007). These studies were reinforced by a recent study. This study investigates the validity of Bos taurus scapulae as a proxy for human frontal bones by comparing the laminar and cancellous bone thickness, as well as the bone mineral density (BMD) of cadaveric frontal bones and adult Bos taurus scapulae
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