ABSTRACT
For medico-legal purposes evidence of age is very essential in various types of cases such as Identification, Consent, Rape, Attainment of Majority, and Eligibility for Employment, etc. Various work done on the study of age determination by the study of appearance of ossification centers and epiphyseal union of different bones in India as well as abroad indicate a reasonable variation. Majority of them conclude that, the ossification and epiphyseal union of a bone vary in different part of the world. To the best of our knowledge very little work has been done on the study of disappearance of tri-radiate cartilage out of various bony parts useful for age estimation. The present study comprising of 50 subjects ( male=35; female=15),was carried out during the period January 2000 to July 2001 at the Forensic Medicine department and Department of radiology, B.J. Medical College, Ahmedabad.