1Associate Professor, Department of Forensic Medicine, ACS Medical College, Chennai
2Assistant Professor, Department of Forensic Medicine, KAP Viswanatham Government Medical College, Tiruchirapalli, Tamilnadu
3Professor (Retired), Department of Forensic Medicine, Karpaga Vinayaga Institute of Medical Sciences, Kanchipuram, Tamilnadu
4Assistant Professor, Department of Community Medicine, Karpaga Vinayaga Institute of Medical Sciences, Kanchipuram, Tamilnadu
*Corresponding Author: Email ID: dr.kjmunique24@gmail.com.
Online published on 4 December, 2018.
Identification is the recognition of an individual by means of various physical features and biological parameters, which are unique to each individual. Our study on sternum was done as an attempt to obtain certain parameters by which sex determination of individual is possible with a reasonable accuracy. The material for the present study consists of 60 (33 Male, 27 Female) sterna obtained from the cadavers brought for medico-legal postmortem examination at a Government Medical College Hospital, Tamilnadu. The mean combined length of male sternum was 151.70 mm, with a standard deviation of 29.5 and the mean length of female sternum was 119.74 mm, with a standard deviation of 19.5. The mean difference between the length of male and female sternum was 31.96 mm. The mean sternal index for males was 48.27 mm, with a standard deviation of 4.65 and for females, it was 53.52 mm, with a standard deviation of 4.96.
Combined length of sternum and manubrium is a reliable criterion for the determination of the sex of a sternum. Due to wide variation in the results of different studies, the sternal index is not a reliable criterion for sex determination
Identification, Sex Determination, Length of Manubrium, Length of Sternum, Sternal Index, Hyrtl's Law
