Osteoscopic assessment of sexual dimorphism in hip bone

Abstract

Introduction: The pelvis is most sexually dimorphic and is the first bone assessed in sex determination because it is the skeletal element most affected by reproduction and parturition.[1] The assessment of the pelvis is made through metric measurements as well as through the visual analysis of non-metric traits; both important aspects of the analysis. The best methods for determining sex from adult skeletal remains involve measurement and inspection of the hip bone that presents a number of gender-related anatomical differences.[2] Most osteologists visually (stereoscopic) evaluate these differences and integrate this subjective assessment ofhip bonemorphology into their sex determinations. The aim of thepresent study is to visually evaluate sexual differences in hip bone and comparing its efficacy with metric assessment. Methods: This study is done on 46 hip bones of adult individuals of known sex from museum of department of anatomy of SGRRIM&HS Dehradun and TMMC&RC Moradabad, India. All these hip bones were visually examined and under mentioned five characters of the hip bone were used, (A) aspects of the preauricular surface, (B) aspects of the greater sciatic notch, (C) the form of the composite arch, (D) the morphology of the inferior pelvis, and (E) ischiopubic proportions. Results: In this study traits of the group (A) were most sexually dimorphic while traits of the group (E) were least sexually dimorphic. Conclusion: Diagnostic accuracy is excellent when the complete hip bone is available. Hip bone features used for sex determination by visual assessment seem to be fairly stable.