title: Age and sex estimation by metric measurements and fusion of hyoid bone in a Turkish population.
abstract: The hyoid bone is of great importance in forensic medicine practice and it has been studied for various forensic purposes; however, there have been few studies dealing with age and sex estimation using the hyoid bone. Using discriminant function analysis this study attempts to determine the utility of metric measurements and non-metric variations of the hyoid bone in terms of estimation of sex and age in a Turkish population and to find out differences with other populations by comparison of obtained results with the literature. For this purpose, the hyoid bones of 85 cadavers of known sex and age were extracted and 33 measurements were made with a computer program following photography with a camera. In addition to these measurements, the degree of fusion of the greater cornua to the hyoid corpus was examined. Out of 33 measurements, 18 showed significant sex-related differences. There was a sharp rise in hyoid bone fusion in both males and females after the age of 60 years. However, no marked sex-related differences were observed regarding fusion. The unstandardised canonical discriminant function was estimated based on three variables, and the correct classification ratio was 77.4% for males and 81.3% for females. The obtained findings suggest that measurements of hyoid bone can be used for sex estimation in the Turkish population.
authors.affiliation: Hacettepe University, Faculty of Medicine, Forensic Medicine Department, Ankara, Turkey. balseven@yahoo.com
authors.forename: Aysun
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Balseven-Odabasi
authors.forename: Elif
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Yalcinozan
authors.forename: Alper
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Keten
authors.forename: Ramazan
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Akçan
authors.forename: Ali Riza
authors.initials: AR
authors.lastname: Tumer
authors.forename: Arif
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Onan
authors.forename: Nergis
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Canturk
authors.forename: Orhan
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Odabasi
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Hakan Dinc
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000365:Age Determination by Skeleton / Q000379:methods*; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D016002:Discriminant Analysis; D005260:Female; D018732:Forensic Anthropology / Q000379:methods; D006801:Humans; D006928:Hyoid Bone / Q000033:anatomy & histology*; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010012:Osteogenesis; D054881:Sex Determination by Skeleton / Q000379:methods*; D014421:Turkey; D055815:Young Adult