Sex determination by discriminant function analysis of femoral heads of a North Indian population

Intangible variation in skeletal remains is an area of interest for many forensic anthropologist and that is useful in instituting the individual identity. For the determination of sex from human remains, use of discriminant function analysis is progressively increasing.

Development of discriminant function for the determination of sex from femoral heads of North Indian Population

Study was done in the Department of Anatomy and it was a prospective study.

Present study was conducted on 60 wet cadaveric specimens from north India (41 males and 19 females) and the femur which appeared normal as per inclusion criteria were considered. Two diameters of femur were measured.

The Trial version of SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Sciences) was used for conducting the statistical analysis and significance level was set at P<0.05

By means of stepwise discriminant function analysis, two variables were chosen as key discriminant between sexes. The discriminant rate for the group of 2 variables resulted in accurate sex determination in 85% in case of vertical diameter of head of femur and 81.7% in case of transverse diameter of femur.

The outcome of the study manifests that femoral head can be used for establishing the sex from remains and the result of current study are analogous with other related studies.