Sexual dimorphism and diagnosis of adult egyptian skulls using lateral cephalometric radiographs

ABSTRACT

Lateral cephalometric radiography was employed in this study to differentiate sex of skulls of 75 adult Egyptian individuals [34 males and 41 females]. The cephalometric analysis used comprised 18 variables; 8 angular, 9 linear and one proportional variable. Using univariate analysis, there was statistically significant difference between male and female mean values for each variable. Male angular mean values were significantly smaller than female values, while for linear variables, female values were significantly smaller than male ones. Moreover there was a significant difference between glabellar projection index [GPI] in male and female subjects, being higher in males. Multivariate regression analysis was applied for the three variables which showed the highest differences in the univariate analysis. These variables were; the angular variable [lOc-NBa], the linear variable [G to SgN], and the proportional variable [GPI]. These variables were found to discriminate the sex of a given subject when used in combination with lOc-NBa being the most dominant variable that did not change in variance greatly by entering the other two variables. Testing sex diagnosis accuracy of these variables when combined revealed that, male successful diagnosis was 99%, and female diagnosis was 97% with an average accuracy for sex diagnosis of 98%