Mandibular Ramus as a Tool For Sexual Determination: A Systematic Review

Abstract

Introduction: Mandible being one of the sturdy bone resists damage and therefore its fragments are mostly available after mass disasters like explosions. After the pelvis, the mandible of the skull has significant sexual dimorphism. Many parameters of the mandible altogether make it suitable to identify sex from a given bone. Aim: To determine sex with the help of parameters of the ramus of human mandible. Materials and Methods: This systematic review included the articles from 2000 to 2020 and took a one-year duration. All studies were categorised under dry bone and radiological study. Only original articles of a cross-sectional study, cohort study and case-control study related to ramus and sex determinations were selected online by using available databases like Medline, Embase, and Google Scholar. All selected articles were then analysed for different types of ramus parameters studied. Studies that considered more than one parameter of ramus were included or otherwise rejected. Research articles that mentioned the efficacy of gender identification of bone by considering parameters of the ramus of the mandible were tabulated. Results: Commonly used ramus parameters by different researchers were maximum ramus breadth/width, minimum ramus breadth/width, ramus flexure and ramus height. In addition, coronoid height and projection height was also used by some. In most of the studies, parameters in males were higher than in females whereas gender predictive value was seen higher i.e, 70-83% when a combination of all ramus parameters was taken. In the case of consideration of a single parameter, gender predictive values ranged from 45-79%, and a higher sex predictive value was seen for males. Conclusion: Only when the fragment of the mandible ramus is available, then it can be utilised for gender identification by using ramus width, ramus height along with other parameters based on availability. Ramus alone is a good tool for sex determination in the mandible.