Evaluación métrica de caninos permanentes para la estimación sexual en la Colección “Prof. Dr. Rómulo Lambre”, Buenos Aires, Argentina

Abstract

Introduction

Sex estimation is a fundamental aspect of forensic work as a mandatory step for the identification of human remains of unknown origin. The methodological analysis of the dentition as a sexual estimator is important due to its high degree of preservation. Considering the need for specific information regarding the potential of dentition for sex estimation in forensic cases from Argentina, the aim of this study is to evaluate the proposal previously developed by Luna (2019) in a local sample of human skeletal remains.

Materials and methods

A sample of 152 permanent canines belonging to 98 individuals of both sexes was selected- The individuals belong to the Prof. Dr. Rómulo Lambre osteological collection (La Plata, Argentina). Luna's proposal (2019) was applied to estimate sex from canine crown and neck metrics, which considers direct measurements and different types of discriminant functions and logistic regressions.

Results

Only the cervical mesiodistal diameter showed acceptable results (> 75%) for sex estimation. Moreover, discriminant function 1 showed a posteriori probabilities of correct classifications greater than 0.75 and logistic regressions 1 and 3 offered acceptable overall results.

Conclusions

This proposal based on the metric recording of permanent canines constitutes an adequate methodological alternative in situations in which the diagnostic bone elements of sex are deteriorated or absent.