Reliability of davidson body to determine the nuclear sex of the individual: interobserver variability between pathologists

Determination of the sex of the individual has great medicolegal importance to solve many criminal and civil problems. But, identifying the sex of hermaphrodites, pseudohermaphrodites, concealed sex and body in advanced state of putrefaction or mutilation, might be difficult. Where, determination of the genetic or nuclear sex by identifying Davidson body in neutrophils would solve issues. Thus, our study aimed to identify the sex of individual by screening neutrophils for the percentage of Davidson bodies and to check interobserver variability.

Peripheral blood smears of 200 subjects (a range of 1 yr to 90 yr) were studied by two pathologists. The pathologists were unaware of sex of the subjects. Smears were well made and stained with leishman stain. Percentage of Davidson bodies was recorded separately in all cases by both the pathologists. Later, the observation was correlated with sex. Interobserver concordance was calculated by Kendall's tau test. One way ANOVA test was used to find out relation between age and number of barr bodies. Davidson bodies were not seen in 103 cases and these individuals were phenotypically males. All (97) the females showed Davidson body (mean of 3.7% and 3.6% as observation made by pathologist I & II respectively). Findings of both the pathologists were concordant in determining the presence or absence of Davidson body. Age had no influence on the number of barr bodies. In conclusion, identification of Davidson body in the neutrophil is very simple, cost effective and rapid method to determine the genetic sex of the individual.