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Morphological Changes of the Frontal Sinus with Age a Two-dimensional Geometric Morphometric Study
Journal
Forensic Imaging
Date Issued
2023
Author(s)
Nur Damia Iwani Zulkiflee
Mansharan Kaur Chainchel Singh
Aspalilah Alias
Helmi Hadi
Eric Chung
Nurul Hannim Zaidun
Rani Sakaran
Ker Woon Choy
DOI
10.1016/j.fri.2023.200569
Abstract
Background: Age estimation of unidentified human remains is an essential for establishing the biological profile of
unidentified human remains. Previous studies have investigated the value linear measurements of the frontal
sinus for age estimation while the value of two-dimensional (2D) geometric morphometric measurements have
not been explored for this purpose.
Objective: This study aims to evaluate the morphological variation of frontal sinus among adults Malaysian for
age estimation using 2D geometric morphometric methods.
Methods: Lateral skull radiographs of 453 adult Malaysians, comprising 151 young adults (20–39 years old), 150
middle-aged adults (40–59 years old) and 152 old adults (60–79 years old), were retrieved retrospectively. Eight
2D landmarks were applied to digitalized radiographs using TPSDig2 software. 2D geometric morphometric
analysis was performed by MorphoJ software.
Results: Procrustes ANOVA revealed no significant differences in shape and size (p-value > 0.05) of frontal sinus
between the three age groups. However, Canonical Variate Analysis showed significant differences for Mahalanobis and Procrustes distances (p-value < 0.05) between young and old adult groups. Discriminant Function
Analysis after cross-validation demonstrated an age classification accuracy of 53.5 %.
Conclusion: The study suggests that 2D geometric morphometric analysis of the frontal sinus cannot be reliably
used to estimate the age of an unknown Malaysian individual.
unidentified human remains. Previous studies have investigated the value linear measurements of the frontal
sinus for age estimation while the value of two-dimensional (2D) geometric morphometric measurements have
not been explored for this purpose.
Objective: This study aims to evaluate the morphological variation of frontal sinus among adults Malaysian for
age estimation using 2D geometric morphometric methods.
Methods: Lateral skull radiographs of 453 adult Malaysians, comprising 151 young adults (20–39 years old), 150
middle-aged adults (40–59 years old) and 152 old adults (60–79 years old), were retrieved retrospectively. Eight
2D landmarks were applied to digitalized radiographs using TPSDig2 software. 2D geometric morphometric
analysis was performed by MorphoJ software.
Results: Procrustes ANOVA revealed no significant differences in shape and size (p-value > 0.05) of frontal sinus
between the three age groups. However, Canonical Variate Analysis showed significant differences for Mahalanobis and Procrustes distances (p-value < 0.05) between young and old adult groups. Discriminant Function
Analysis after cross-validation demonstrated an age classification accuracy of 53.5 %.
Conclusion: The study suggests that 2D geometric morphometric analysis of the frontal sinus cannot be reliably
used to estimate the age of an unknown Malaysian individual.
Subjects