Posticulus ponticus and its accent at forensics

Abstract

Aim: The aim of the article is to enlighten the role of posticulus ponticus in forensics for determination of age, sex, race and occupation of an individual, based on radiographs. Materials and Method: A systematic search for the pub med indexed articles till March 2017 was carried out, where 30 published articles and the abstracts were reviewed regarding the prevalence of posticulus ponticus, its anatomical variation in age, sex, racial and occupational discrimination. Results: The incidence of posticulus ponticus has been reported by various studies to be in the range of 9.8 to 25.9% with a male predominance of 5.33% when compared to female prevalence of 3.76%. The average age corresponds to 19.5yrs in patients with a partial bony bridge and 22.8yrs in case with complete formation of the bony bridge. The incidence of partial type (25.9%) was higher when compared to complete type (7.2%). Apart from the age and sex discrimination, posticulus ponticus was found to be showing racial discrimination which is predominant in western population of the world with its prevalence ranging from 5.1% to 37.8%. This anomaly was also found to be showing variation in its prevalence according to occupation. Conclusion: Posticulus ponticus can be used as a potent deterministic anomaly in age, sex, racial and occupational determination; however a huge radiographic studies and review of literature is needed to implement this practically. Keywords: Posticulus ponticus, Atlas vertebrae, Routine radiographic examination, Age, Sex, Racial, Occupational discrimination