Abstract
Introduction: Teeth are found to be a very useful tool for forensic investigations because of their nature, exhibiting the least turnover of natural structure and effective resistance to mechanical, chemical, physical or thermal destructions. In addition, teeth are readily accessible structure for examination. Amongst all the teeth, the mandibular canine found to exhibit greatest sexual dimorphism. Considering the fact that there are differences in odontometric features in specific populations, the present study was taken up to investigate whether Mandibular Canine Width (MCW), Inter-Canine Distance (ICD) and Mandibular Canine Index (MCI) can be used as a tool for sex determination in South Indian Population. Materials and method: ‘The present study was carried out on 60 apparently healthy individuals from students of Medical college who are origin of south India whose ages ranged between 17-21 years in the Department of Forensic Medicine and Dentistry in the Sri Muthukumaran Medical College Hospital and Research Institute to establish significance of sexual dimorphism in the mandibular canine. Results: The present study confirms that, the means of mandibular canine width and an inter-canine distance were higher in males than in the females and difference is statistically significant. (P 0.05) and overall accuracy of predictive value in respect to sex determination from MCI is only 47.08%. Further we observed whenever mesio-distal canine width less than 6.88 mm, the probability of sex being female and if width is more than 7.4 mm the probability of sex favored towards male. Conclusion: Our study provides a conclusive proof of mandibular canine width and Inter-canine distance exhibits great potentiality of sexual dimorphism. However, MCI per se has limited value and can use as adjunct with other parameters.
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