Abstract
Sex estimation from skeletal remains is crucial for the estimation of the biological profile of an individual. Although the most commonly used bones for means of sex estimation are the pelvis and the skull, research has shown that acceptable accuracy rates might be achieved by using other skeletal elements such as vertebrae. This study aims to contribute to the development of sex estimation standards from a Turkish population through the examination of CT scans from the seven cervical vertebrae. A total of 294 individuals were included in this study. The CT scans were obtained from patients attending the Bakirkoy Training and Research Hospital (Turkey) and the data was collected retrospectively by virtually taking measurements from each cervical vertebrae. The full database was divided into a training set (N = 210) and a validation set (N = 84) to test the fit of the models. Observer error was assessed through technical error of measurement and sex differences were explored using parametric and non-parametric approaches. Logistic regression was applied in order to explore different combinations of vertebral parameters. The results showed low intra- and inter-observer errors. All parameters presented statistically significant differences between the sexes and a total of 15 univariate and multivariate models were generated producing accuracies ranging from a minimum of 83.30% to a maximum of 91.40% for a model including three parameters collected from four vertebrae. This study presents a virtual method using cervical vertebrae for sex estimation on the Turkish population providing error rates comparable to other metric studies conducted on the postcranial skeleton. The presented results contribute not only to the development of population-specific standards but also to the generation of virtual methods that can be tested, validated, and further examined in future forensic cases.
Highlights
Sex estimation through the examination of skeletal remains is one of the first steps in creating a reliable biological profile and plays a key role in terms of identification [1, 2]
Normality was violated on all occasions and the null hypothesis of equal covariance matrices was rejected, and a non-parametric test (Kruskal-Wallis test) to explore if there are any statistically significant differences between age groups for cervical measurements at significance level of p < 0.05. This project includes 41,160 metric data obtained from computed tomography (CT) images of 2058 vertebrae of 294 adults from contemporary Turkish population
The only two parameters showing more than 10% of the variance related to variability between subject scores were reported for C3HT and C5AP (R = 0.89)
Summary
Sex estimation through the examination of skeletal remains is one of the first steps in creating a reliable biological profile and plays a key role in terms of identification [1, 2]. Sex must be estimated before age, ancestry, and stature due to biological differences between males and females having an impact on the assessment of other pieces of biological information [2, 3]. Anthropological sex estimation consists of two main methodological approaches: morphological and metric analyses [2]. Morphological approaches are based on the visual evaluation of sexually dimorphic features and are mainly focused on the pelvis and skull, and on the overall status including the differentiation of the robusticity of the bones and observations of various muscle marks [2]. Metric methods are based on size differences between female and male individuals and typically use other postcranial elements along with the skull and the pelvis [2].
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
