CBCT Evaluation of Maxillary Sinus in Forensic Gender Determination

Abstract

Introduction

Gender determination is a vital step towards identifying deceased individuals especially when the remains of said individuals are not detailed. Skeletal bones, especially the skull are more preferred for identification as they can be recovered rather undamaged. One of the key areas used for identification is maxillary sinuses as they are unique to every individual in terms of their anatomy and dimensions. Modalities like MRI, CT and CBCT are used to plot out the accurate dimensions of these structures.

 The aim of this study is to evaluate the dimensional variation of the maxillary sinuses for gender determination by CBCT and to provide additional information to the existing literature.

Materials and methods

This retrospective analysis was done in the Department of Oral Medicine and Radiology in Saveetha Dental College and Hospital in India where CBCT data of 100 patients were collected from Carestream CS 3D 9600 software (50 males and 50 females). The CBCT scans were analysed for its volume in axial and sagittal sections.  The data was tabulated in Microsoft Excel 2016 and later exported to SPSS and subjected to statistical analysis. The Chi-square test was employed with a level of significance set at p<0.05.

Results: The mean sinus width in males varied from 27.5 ± 1.56 whereas in females was 19.7 ± 4.95, the mean sinus height ranged from 35.12 ± 2.56 in males and 31.45 ± 3.17 in females

Conclusion:The study proposes the reliability, usability and accuracy of CBCT for evaluating maxillary sinus dimensions in the field of forensic science.