Conventional Frontal Air Sinus Imaging in Personal Identification among Adult Bangladeshi

Author(s): Farzana Maqsood, ShamimAra, Md. Abdur rashid

The frontal air sinuses are essential for anatomists, radiologists, anthropologists, dentists, and clinicians to diagnose diseases. Identifying unknown persons, sex differentiation, and age determination are vital in forensic investigations because individuals' frontal air sinus characteristics make the frontal bone unique for every individual. This study aimed to determine differences in frontal air sinus width by height ratio among Bangladeshi adults. In the Department of Anatomy of Dhaka Medical College, Bangladesh, a cross-sectional analytical study was done by applying conventional and purposive sampling techniques. This study was conducted from January 2016 to December 2016. The analysis was performed on 100 radiographs of the Caldwell view of the skull of adult Bangladeshis. Out of 100 radiographs, 50 were male, and 50 were female. The Caldwell radiograph of the frontal air sinus of the selected individual was collected and viewed on the x-ray view box, traced on a transparent graph paper sheet placed on each radiograph film, and the linear measurements of frontal air sinus height and width were obtained from each radiograph by counting the boxes of transparent graph paper sheet. Then the ratio of width by size was calculated by dividing the width of the frontal air sinus by the height of the frontal air sinus individually. Unpaired Student's t-test and paired Student's t-test were done for statistical analysis of the results. The adult male left frontal air sinus width by height ratio was significantly higher than the right frontal air sinus width by height ratio, but adult female shows that right frontal air sinus width by height ratio was higher than the left frontal air sinus width by height ratio, which was not significant. Both right frontal air sinus and left frontal air sinus width by height ratio were higher in males than females, which was highly significant. The result demonstrates that the cost-effective, non-invasive, and widely applicable Caldwell view radiological morphometric analysis of frontal air sinus can be used to identify an unknown person due to the unique morphological value of the frontal air sinus in every individual.