INTRODUCTION: The first step in the forensic identification is sex determination followed by age and stature estimation, as both are sex-dependent. The mandible is the largest, strongest and most durable bone in the face. Mandible is important for sex confirmation in absence of a complete pelvis and skull. AIM: The aim of the present study was to determine sex of human mandible from morphology, morphometric measurements as well as discriminant function analysis from the CT scan. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The present retrospective study comprised 79 subjects (48 males, 31 females), with age group between 18 and 74 years, and were obtained from the post mortem computed tomography data in the Hospital Kuala Lumpur. The parameters were divided into three morphologic and nine morphometric parameters, which were measured by using Osirix MD Software 3D Volume Rendering. RESULTS: The Chi-square test showed that men were significantly association with square-shaped chin (92%), prominent muscle marking (85%) and everted gonial glare, whereas women had pointed chin (84%), less prominent muscle marking (90%) and inverted gonial glare (80%). All parameter measurements showed significantly greater values in males than in females by independent t-test (p< 0.01). By discriminant analysis, the classification accuracy was 78.5%, the sensitivity was 79.2% and the specificity was 77.4%. The discriminant function equation was formulated based on bigonial breath and condylar height, which were the best predictors. CONCLUSION: In conclusion, the mandible could be distinguished according to the sex. The results of the study can be used for identification of damaged and/or unknown mandible in the Malaysian population.

Introduction: This review explores the usage of radiological technique mainly, CT scan in bone for identification of human remains in different population. A systematic review of the literature was conducted to identify the relevant studies on human bone by CT scan. Methodology: A comprehensive search was conducted in Medline and Science Direct for relevant studies published between 1998 and 2017. The main inclusion criteria were research articles published in English, and studies which reported the usage of CT scan method in bones for identification of human remains (sex, age and stature). Results: The literature search identified 48 potentially relevant articles, whereby 14 had met the inclusion criteria. Six review articles, six case studies, two soft tissue thickness examination papers, one pathological CT scan study, eight duplicates, one not CT scan data and children specimens were excluded from this review. All the studies reported the usefulness of CT scan in different human bones for identification and collection of database in different populations. Conclusion: This evidence-based review highlighted the usefulness of CT scan as a secondary method other than postmortem examination to narrow down the identification of human remains. Further studies are required to identify the methods that use CT scan in forensic anthropology either by traditional or geometric morphometric. � 2018 Japan Health Sciences University & Japan International Cultural Exchange Foundation.

Estimation of stature plays a significant role in establishing personal identity in forensic anthropology. The objective is to derive specific population regression equations to estimate stature from hand and foot measurements in the Malaysian population. A prospective cross-sectional study was done with 400 staffs and students, who were randomly chosen from Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia Medical Centre (UKMMC) and ranged from 19 to 60�years old. The subjects comprised 200 males and 200 females (257 Malay, 112 Chinese and 31 Indian). Eleven parameters, such as hand length 1, hand length 2, hand length 3, hand length 4, hand length 5, hand length, palm length, hand breadth, maximum hand breadth, foot breadth and foot length were measured twice by measuring tape and Vernier callipers, and were averaged. Results revealed that the parameters exhibited a significant difference between sexes and ethnic groups (p�<�0.05). The relative TEM was 0.7 and 1.37% for intra- and inter-observational analyses, respectively, which were acceptable for measurement accuracy. Paired t-tests showed close approximation between estimated and true stature. Thus, the regressions could be used for stature estimation in the Malaysian population. Further study is needed to evaluate and validate the results for future use. � 2018, � 2018 Australian Academy of Forensic Sciences.

Scapulae have been widely studied for its potential in differentiating sex in skeletal remains, especially when traditionally used sexually dimorphic bones were not available. The present work aimed to investigate sexual dimorphism of scapulae, and to develop and validate the population-specific metric standards of the Malaysian population using three-dimensional (3D) computed tomographic (CT) scapula models. Each scapula was measured for five variables with a digital caliper and analysed for independent T-test and discriminant analysis, where a leave-one-out cross-validation was applied. Moreover, a set of different samples (hold-out sample) was used to validate the established discriminant functions (DF). Consequently, all measurements showed significant differences between males and females (p < 0.001) and morphological breadth was discovered as the most sexually dimorphic scapulae measurements. Six DFs with classification accuracy ranging from 84.4% to 93.1% were generated. From the functions, stepwise DF predicted the highest classification accuracy. Additionally, the stepwise DF exhibited 95% classification accuracy when tested on the hold-out sample compared to univariate DFs which showed 82.5�92.5% accuracy. In conclusion, the virtual 3D scapulae models were sexually dimorphic, and the discriminant functions were significant in identifying skeletonized remains using scapulae bone in the Malaysian population. � 2019, � 2019 Australian Academy of Forensic Sciences.