Research article

MANDIBULAR RAMUS HEIGHT IN SEX DETERMINATION IN RIGHT SIDE USING OPG - A RETROSPECTIVE STUDY.

Dev Arora, Dr. Abirami Arthanari

Online First: November 15, 2022


INTRODUCTION: Gender estimation is a very important field in anthropology and forensic sciences. The sex of an individual can be determined based on morphology and metric features of the skull and other bones. The skull or mandible is the most reliable part for forensic studies and in the estimation of age and sex with the help of tissue typing and DNA profiling as cadavers show a very high degree of decomposition. Various studies have related mandibles as the most preferable part of the skull which is helpful in determining age and gender and are used preferably by most of the forensic odontologists. AIM: To calculate the mandibular ramus height with help of OPG and estimate the gender. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The present study was conducted in the department of Forensic Odontology. OPG samples were collected from the department of oral medicine and radiology, Saveetha Dental College and Hospitals, Chennai and were measured by PLANMECA. The number of samples collected were 30 males and 30 females of age group 30-35 years. The data was transferred to SPSS software for further results. RESULTS: The mean and standard deviation for the ramus height for Males and Females were 77.15±7.42mm and 67.17±4.73mm respectively. The p value was found to be 0.000 which denotes that there’s a significant difference between the ramus height of males and females. DISCUSSION: Highest sexual dimorphism was seen with projective height of ramus and least with minimum ramus breadth with an accuracy of 80.2%. Mandibular ramus height found to be the best parameter statistically significant with P = 0.005. CONCLUSION: The mandibular ramus can be considered as a valuable tool in gender estimation since it possesses resistance to damage and disintegration processes.

Keywords

Mandible, Mandibular ramus height, Gender estimation, OPG, Temporomandibular joint