1Assistant Professor, Department of Forensic Medicine, Pondicherry Institute of Medical Sciences, Pondicherry
2Ex- Director Professor, Department of Forensic Medicine, Maulana Azad Medical College, New Delhi
3Assistant Professor, Department of Forensic Medicine, Aarupadai Veedu Medical College, Pondicherry
4Director Professor, Department of Forensic Medicine, Maulana Azad Medical College, New Delhi
5Ex-Director Professor, Department of Radiology, Govind Ballabh Pant Hospital, New Delhi
6Ex-Professor of Excellence, Department of Forensic Medicine, Maulana Azad Medical College, New Delhi
*Corresponding Author, Dr. Arthy Amarnath, Email: arthy2712@gmail.com, Mobile No.: +91-8447662259
Online Published on 03 December, 2022.
When an individual has surpassed the growth phase of life, fewer parameters are left for estimation of age. One such parameter is cranial sutures ossification. This study was conducted to find the feasibility of age estimation from sagittal suture using cross-sectional multidetector computed tomography. This study was done on live patients of known age who presented for computed tomography indicated for other conditions such as headache, epilepsy, etc. The sagittal suture was reconstructed and divided into 4 segments of equal length. A block of 15 mm was randomly chosen from each segment and fifteen cross-sectional images at 1 mm interval were viewed in the coronal plane to assign a stage value (0–6) as defined by Harth et al. Mean scores of these stage values and their correlation coefficients were calculated for the age of the individuals. We found a significant correlation of sagittal suture ossification with the age of the individual. Although our study has yielded wide prediction intervals which preclude its application in forensic casework, still this method can be used in conjunction with other methods of age estimation of adults.
Sagittal suture, Cranial sutures, Computed tomography, Age estimation, Forensic anthropology
