Testing Discriminant Functions for Sex Determination from Deciduous Teeth

:  Three studies have proposed discriminant functions for sex determination from deciduous tooth crown dimensions, and this study tests the existing functions on a sample of 46 Portuguese immature skeletons of known sex, aged from birth to 10 years. Deciduous teeth were measured in their mesiodistal...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of forensic sciences 2010-11, Vol.55 (6), p.1557-1560
Main Author: Cardoso, Hugo F. V.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Birth
Bones
Child
Child, Preschool
deciduous dentition
Discriminant Analysis
Female
forensic anthropology
Forensic Dentistry
Forensic odontology
Forensic osteology
forensic science
Gender
human identification
Human remains
Humans
Infant
Infant, Newborn
Male
odontometrics
Odontometry
Reproducibility of Results
Sex Characteristics
sex determination
Studies
Teeth
Tooth Crown - anatomy & histology
Tooth, Deciduous - anatomy & histology
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Summary::  Three studies have proposed discriminant functions for sex determination from deciduous tooth crown dimensions, and this study tests the existing functions on a sample of 46 Portuguese immature skeletons of known sex, aged from birth to 10 years. Deciduous teeth were measured in their mesiodistal and faciolingual crown dimensions, and percentage of correct allocation accuracy in determining sex using each specific function was determined. Discriminant functions were also calculated from data collected for this study and tested using cross‐validation. Results show poor overall accuracy (33.3–75%) and poor cross‐validation (46.2–60.0%). This is related to low sexual dimorphism in deciduous tooth crown size, as well as differences in degree of sexual dimorphism and in overall tooth size between different samples. For these reasons, deciduous crown size does not seem to show significant forensic value as discriminator of sex, particularly when methods developed on one population are applied to individuals of another population.
ISSN:0022-1198
1556-4029
DOI:10.1111/j.1556-4029.2010.01530.x