Sex Determination using Femoral Head Diameters on Radiographs of Adults who visited Delta State University Teaching Hospital, Oghara, Nigeria

Introduction: Estimating biological sex is critical for identifying unknown skeletal remains in modern medico-legal circumstances or bioarcheological research of previous cultures. Population-specific sexual dimorphism often affects sex estimation methodologies. The goal of this study was to determine sex using femoral head diameters.

Materials and Methods: This study adopted the retrospective cross-sectional study of the quantitative design. This study was carried out in the radiology department of Delta State University Teaching Hospital, Oghara. The radiographs selected showed hip joint, intact Shenton’s lines, no fracture at the femoral necks, no pathological disorders, intact cortices at femoral heads and were of known sexes. The radiographs were those taken at a routine object-film distance of 5cm and focal film distance of 92cm in the anterior-posterior view with the two big toes touching on their medial aspects. With the aid of a certified radiographer, the measurements were taken by locating the appropriate points using a mouse-operated cursor at the defined anatomical coordinates. The distance/angle in the two points were subsequently obtained from the screen’s results window in standardized units. The axes of the femoral neck and shaft and the maximum femoral headdiameterswere determined by means ofthe digital vernier caliper. The data was analyzed using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) software version 23 (IBM Corp., Armonk, NY, USA).The level of statistical significance was set at P < 0.05.

Results: The means of males and females were seen to be different and these differences were statistically significant for all parameters (Right Femoral Head Vertical Diameter, Right Femoral Head Transverse Diameter, Left Femoral Head Vertical Diameter; Left Femoral Head Transverse Diameter (P<0.001).

Conclusion: Focusing on the results of this study, it was concluded that the mean values of the studied parameters are statistically and significantly different in males and females. These parameters are useful and reliable for sexual dimorphism in anthropometric and Forensic studies, especially in identifying skeletal remains.