Sex determination using the petrous portion of the temporal bone: A validation study of three cranial techniques using computed tomography (CT) scans

This study reports on the validation of three previously published methods of sex determination for the petrous portion of the temporal bone using computed tomography (CT) scans. The objectives of this study were to evaluate the lateral angle (Akansel et al., 2008; Graw et al., 2005; Noren et al., 2005), diameter (Lynnerup et al., 2006), and length methods (Papangelou 1975) for the internal acoustic canal in accurately determining the sex of human skeletal remains using image-based measurements. The mean differences for all of the measurements did not reach statistical significance (p < 0.05) and the sex differences reported for the previous cadaveric studies (Akansel et al., 2008; Graw et al., 2005; Lynnerup et al., 2006; Noren et al., 2005; Papangelou 1975) were not substantiated here; however, the consistency in the means and ranges of measurements between the current study and the previous research suggests that computerized tomography (CT) is capable of reproducing direct anatomic measurements of the skull.;KEYWORDS: Sex determination, petrous portion, internal acoustic canal, computed tomography (CT)...