Estimation of stature from femur length measured using computed tomography after the analysis of three-dimensional characteristics of femur bone in Korean cadavers

Abstract

Estimation of stature is a basic and important forensic procedure in identifying decomposed or skeletonized bodies. Due to advances in radiologic equipment, forensic science frequently uses computed tomography (CT) and software to apply these findings to investigations. Technical developments have increased the accuracy of the measurement of various bones. However, there are still some inaccuracies, such as defining correct landmarks in three-dimensional (3D) images. Femur length is frequently used for calculation of stature, but because it is a 3D structure, the digital image may not always correlate with the femur length measured with an osteometric board. However, more studies are now showing that the maximum femur length calculated in 3D imagery is comparable to the maximum femur length calculated using an osteometric board. This study used digitalized data of the femur obtained from the CT image through the specialized software. The digitalized femur images were put on the virtual osteometric board, which helped us to understand the anatomic characteristics of the femur and to confirm that the maximum femur lengths calculated in 3D images are similar to the results obtained using an osteometric board. These data were used to obtain a stature estimation formula for the Korean population.

Stature Estimation from Postmortem CT Femoral Maximum Length in Contemporary Danish Population

“…These studies provide abundant comparable data to look into the correlations of different skeletal elements for stature estimation. Among them, the equations based on femoral length resulted in the SEE values of 3.21–3.47 cm in Korean population and 3.29–3.85 cm in Japanese population , which represents the best performances among all the other equations using other irregular bones (Table ). In line with the results from the previous studies, the SEE values obtained from the equations based on femoral length in our present study ranged from 3.53 to 4.40 cm.…”

“…Regarding stature estimation, CT techniques have been applied on the cranium, cervical vertebra, scapula, clavicle, sternum, metacarpals, pelvis, sacrum, and upper and lower limb lengths in various populations such as the Italian, Swiss, Egyptian, Turkish, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, and Nepalese populations . These studies provide abundant comparable data to look into the correlations of different skeletal elements for stature estimation.…”

“…In line with the results from the previous studies, the SEE values obtained from the equations based on femoral length in our present study ranged from 3.53 to 4.40 cm. Previous studies using CT data demonstrate that, although the other bones could be used to estimate stature, the length of the femur might be more relevant to stature and thus reliable for stature estimation .…”

“…Because CT imaging is increasingly applied in the context of forensic anthropology, postmortem computed tomography (PMCT) measurements of metric femoral parameters can be reliable to develop stature estimation regression equations. Other studies on CT and femora have already been conducted on Swiss , Korean , Japanese , and Malaysian populations.…”

Adult Stature Estimation from Radiographic Metatarsal Length in a Contemporary Korean Population

“…Even in our formula, the correlation between metatarsal length and stature was statistically significant, but the correlation coefficient (R) was slightly lower than that of other races. Although studies on estimating the stature of the Korean population are very rare, it has been reported that the R-value in the formula for estimating the stature by measuring the femur length from cadavers using computed tomography was high, ranging from 0.85 to 0.89 [ 36 ]. Consequently, our results indicate that metatarsal length from digital radiographs do not provide a very highly reliable method for estimating stature in the Korean population.…”