Age determination from sternal ends of the Ribs-an autopsy study

A random study of 500 cases for age determination from sternal ends of the ribs was carried out in the Department of Forensic Medicine and Toxicology, Govt. Medical College, Amritsar with joint supervision of Department of Anatomy. The aim of the study was to determine the age after death with minimal error. Currently there are different parameters available to determine the age of a person like study of teeth, ossification of bones and other ancillary data, but the accurate reliability of these measures is only limited to a particular age group i.e. 25 ± 5 years. For the age beyond this, many workers in different parts of the world have done their studies to accurately determine the age of a person from the skeleton. Study by Iscan et al (1984) has emphasized fair amount of accurate assessment of age from the sternal end of the ribs. The present study was a similar attempt to analyze the reliability and accuracy of Iscan et al's (1984) work in this part of the world.