Variation in soft‐tissue thicknesses on the human face and their relation to craniometric dimensions

Abstract

The average thickness of soft tissues on parts of the face is known, but its variation has not been related to cranial morphology. To investigate this relationship, measurements of facial soft-tissue depths and craniometric dimensions were taken on adult, white Australian cadavers (17 male and 23 female). Significant correlations between many soft-tissue depths and craniometric dimensions were found, suggesting a relationship between the amount of soft tissue present on the face and the size of the underlying bony skeleton. Soft-tissue depths were highly positively correlated with each other; craniometric dimensions were correlated but to a lesser extent. Males had thicker soft tissues and larger craniometric dimensions than females; considerable overlap of ranges was also noted. Multiple regression analysis was used to produce equations predicting the soft-tissue depth at specified areas of the face from craniometric dimensions. A subsample of nine cadavers was examined for the effects of tissue embalming. Embalming caused significant initial increases in facial soft-tissue depths. Cadavers embalmed for less than 6 months had soft-tissue depths significantly greater than for fully embalmed cadavers. The evidence that facial soft-tissue thicknesses vary with craniofacial dimensions has implications for forensic identification, facial aesthetic surgery, and approximation of the facial features of extinct individuals.

Facial soft tissue thicknesses in Bulgarian adults: relation to sex, body mass index and bilateral asymmetry

“…Some authors established high variability at lateral landmarks in the maxillary and mandibular regions [6], while the other noted large individual variation in the areas around lips and chin [24]. However, our results show that the most variable STTs established through CV are in the cheek and orbital region, and only gonion from the mandible variables appears in the most front positions.…”

“…Besides, some of the authors have found greater STTs at the orbital region [20,21], forehead [20], chin [22,24] and skull vault [23]. Furthermore, El-Mehallawi and Soliman [13] revealed a notable sexual dimorphism in facial soft tissues with significantly greater STTs in females in most of the facial regions, including eye, cheek, lip, chin and jaw.…”

“…Nowadays, this method has also been applied on Australian [8,24], Spanish [27,32], Portuguese [5], and Brazilian cadavers [30]. STT data have been obtained on X-ray images as well, allowing these measurements to be taken in vivo [1,11,14].…”

“…Thus, there are many datasets available for various population groups from Europe [5,6,15,19,31], Asia [2,9,16,18,23,29], North America [4,21], South America [22,30], Africa [1,3,13,20], and Australia [8,24,28]. For some of the population groups, the presence of significant interpopulation differences in the facial soft tissues has been established in the comparison with other close or distant populations [2,3,13,20].…”

“…The sex and age have been the most discussed factors for their influence on the facial STTs, unlike the nutritional condition of individuals, which has not been considered in many studies and only individuals with normal nutritional status were examined [1,3,8,10,13,14,20,23,24,29,32]. However, the nutritional status of an individual may be an important factor for a successful recognition of the reconstructed face given that the changes in the STTs in relation to the weight have been shown to affect the subjective assessment considerably [25].…”