Frontal sinus variation has been used in forensic anthropology to aid in positive identification since the 1920s. As radiographic technology has evolved, so has the quality and quantity of data that radiologists and anthropologists can collect during an individual’s lifetime. This has led to new methodology when comparing antemortem and postmortem radiographic images. The current study aims to look at frontal sinus morphology and dimensional variations on computed tomography (CT) scans, as these are currently the most commonly collected images showing the frontal sinus in its entirety used in clinics in the United States. This study assessed 307 individuals for the morphological analysis and 325 individuals in the dimensional analysis. These individuals represented females and males from Asian, African, European, and Latin American derived groups. It is hypothesized that frontal sinus shape variations will cluster based on assigned sex and population affinities. Similarly, it is hypothesized that dimensional variation, specifically the maximum height, maximum width, and maximum depth, will show statistically significant clustering based on assigned sex and population affinities.
The frontal sinus outlines from the CT images were transferred into SHAPE v1.3 in order to run an elliptical Fourier analysis. The dimensional data was measured directly from the images using a MicroDicom viewer. All of the statistical analyses, including Pearson’s Chi-squared and ANOVA tests, were run in R studio.
Results indicated that morphologically there is no statistically significant clustering based on assigned sex or population affinity. However, there was statistically significant clustering dimensionally when tested against both assigned sex and population affinity using an ANOVA, indicating that the interactive effects of sexual dimorphism and population affinity influence the dimensions but not the shape of the frontal sinus. These results add to the foundational knowledge that practitioners have surrounding frontal sinus indicating that assigned sex and population affinity have impact on the approximate dimensions of this structure while these variables do not have a statistically significant effect on morphological variation. The results also speak to the idiosyncratic nature of the frontal sinus and bolster confidence using morphological variations as a mean to individuate.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bu.edu/oai:open.bu.edu:2144/43889 |
| Date | 13 February 2022 |
| Creators | Shamlou, Austin |
| Contributors | Tallman, Sean D. |
| Source Sets | Boston University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis/Dissertation |
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