title: Towards a method for determining age ranges from faces of juveniles on photographs.
abstract: The steady increase in the distribution of juvenile pornographic material in recent years strongly required valid methods for estimating the age of the victims. At the present in fact forensic experts still commonly use the assessment of sexual characteristics by Tanner staging, although they have proven to be too subjective and deceiving for age estimation. The objective of this study, inspired by a previous EU project involving Italy, Germany and Lithuania, is to verify the applicability of certain anthropometric indices of faces in order to determine age and to create a database of facial measurements on a population of children in order to improve face ageing techniques. In this study, 1924 standardized facial images in frontal view and 1921 in lateral view of individuals from 7 age groups (3-5 years, 6-8 years, 9-11 years, 12-14 years, 15-17 years, 18-20 years, 21-24 years) underwent metric analysis. Individuals were all of Caucasoid ancestry and Italian nationality. Eighteen anthropometric indices in the frontal view and five in the lateral view were then calculated from the obtained measurements. Indices showing a correlation with age were ch-ch/ex-ex, ch-ch/pu-pu, en-en/ch-ch and se-sto/ex-ex in the frontal view, se-prn/se-sn, se-prn/se-sto and se-sn/se-sto in the lateral view. All the indices increased with age except for en-en/ch-ch, without relevant differences between males and females. These results provide an interesting starting point not only for placing a photographed face in an age range but also for refining the techniques of face ageing and personal identification.
authors.affiliation: LABANOF, Laboratorio di Antropologia e Odontologia Forense, Sezione di Medicina Legale, Dipartimento di Scienze Biomediche per la Salute, Università degli Studi di Milano, Italy.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Cummaudo
authors.affiliation: LABANOF, Laboratorio di Antropologia e Odontologia Forense, Sezione di Medicina Legale, Dipartimento di Scienze Biomediche per la Salute, Università degli Studi di Milano, Italy.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Guerzoni
authors.affiliation: LABANOF, Laboratorio di Antropologia e Odontologia Forense, Sezione di Medicina Legale, Dipartimento di Scienze Biomediche per la Salute, Università degli Studi di Milano, Italy; SVSeD, Soccorso Violenza Sessuale e Domestica, Fondazione IRCCS Cà Granda, Ospedale Maggiore Policlinico di Milano, Milan, Italy.
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Gibelli
authors.affiliation: Dipartimento di Meccanica, Sezione Misure Meccaniche e Termiche, Politecnico di Milano, Italy.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Cigada
authors.affiliation: Institut für Rechtsmedizin, Universitätsklinikum Düsseldorf, Moorenstraße 5, 40225 Düsseldorf, Germany.
authors.forename: Z
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Obertovà
authors.affiliation: Institut für Rechtsmedizin, Universitätsklinikum Düsseldorf, Moorenstraße 5, 40225 Düsseldorf, Germany.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ratnayake
authors.affiliation: LABANOF, Laboratorio di Antropologia e Odontologia Forense, Sezione di Medicina Legale, Dipartimento di Scienze Biomediche per la Salute, Università degli Studi di Milano, Italy.
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Poppa
authors.affiliation: Institut für Rechtsmedizin, Universitätsklinikum Düsseldorf, Moorenstraße 5, 40225 Düsseldorf, Germany.
authors.forename: P
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Gabriel
authors.affiliation: Institut für Rechtsmedizin, Universitätsklinikum Düsseldorf, Moorenstraße 5, 40225 Düsseldorf, Germany.
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Ritz-Timme
authors.affiliation: LABANOF, Laboratorio di Antropologia e Odontologia Forense, Sezione di Medicina Legale, Dipartimento di Scienze Biomediche per la Salute, Università degli Studi di Milano, Italy; Institut für Rechtsmedizin, Universitätsklinikum Düsseldorf, Moorenstraße 5, 40225 Düsseldorf, Germany. Electronic address: cristina.cattaneo@unimi.it.
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Cattaneo
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000365:Age Determination by Skeleton / Q000379:methods*; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005145:Face / Q000033:anatomy & histology*; D005260:Female; D018732:Forensic Anthropology; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010781:Photography; D044465:White People; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Age estimation; Child abuse; Facial anatomy; Facial landmarks; Forensic anthropology population data; Personal identification