Sex Determination from Anthropological Measurements of Thyroid Cartilage in the Population of Punjab

In the era of nanotechnology, with the advancement of scientific technologies, the extraordinary task of establishing identity of an individual has been simplified in the developed countries. However the application of such modern technologies in developing countries is still a distant dream owing to its affordability. In such countries, anthropometric analysis for the identification of unknown bodies is comparatively fruitful and cost effective. The aim of this study was to correlate the anthropological measurements of the thyroid cartilage with the sex of the individual. Thyroid cartilages from 300 cases of Punjab population were studied. A total of seventeen parameters were measured in each thyroid cartilage and the observations were compared between both sexes. Significant difference between two groups was found only in six variables (length of right and left thyroid lamina, breadth of right and left thyroid lamina, ventral thyroid height and angle between thyroid laminae). Discriminant function equation for determination of sex with group centroid value for each gender group was obtained. The measurements were again cross validated with the obtained discriminant function equation and further classified into male and female groups with a success rate of 92.3%.