A study on utility of ear morphometry for estimation of stature among North Indian population

Abstract

Introduction: Human body is different from one another with respect to physical and genetic variations. Anthropometry is a reliable technique to understand physical variations which are useful in various sectors such as surgeries, forensic analysis and individual identification of various parts, human ear morphology acts a crucial part in determining stature and sexual dimorphism in human population

Aim: To compare and determine human external ear morphometry for stature estimation in male and female participants.

Materials and methods: Present study included 300 participants (150 males and 150 females) of age 15-20 years. The study was done in Anatomy department of and the various morphometric features related to ear included were ear length, lobule length, ear width and lobule width. Analysis was done with Pearson’s correlation coefficient, student’s t-test and regression equations were used.

Results: Males had significantly high ear parameters (length and width) for both ears compared to females. Similar was the case with ear lobule. Both the participants showed strong correlation of stature with the ear parameters. Estimated stature was obtained from the regression equation and it was comparable with that of actual stature (P>0.05).

Conclusion: Morphometry of human ear can give almost accurate stature. Also, this study may be worthful in forensic anthropology and is medicolegal cases where stature estimation is important.