Abstract

Background: Identification of human skeletal remains is of major importance in medico-legal situations such as criminal cases, mass disasters and human rights abuse investigations. Sex can be established by gross examination of skeleton using metric and morphological techniques. Sexing the skeleton which is intact and entire is certainly easier and reliable with high accuracy as against done with only a part of the skeleton. A sexing accuracy of 90–95% from whole skeleton, pelvis, or one hip bone and 80% accuracy from skull alone. The occipital bone remains well protected and well preserved structure by huge volume of soft tissues, this makes occipital bone useful in the sex determination. Aim of the study: To document and analyze the foramen magnum and to investigate its reliability in sex prediction at computed tomographic images of adult human skull. Methods: This study was carried on 100 Computed Tomographic images of the skull of adult persons (50 males and 50 females). The length and breadth of foramen magnum were measured. Results: There is significant difference between the length of foramen magnum in males and females (pv = 0.00) and there is significant difference between the breadth of foramen magnum in males and females (pv=0.00) and there is no significant difference between different ages after puberty. Conclusion: There is statistically significant expression of sexual difference in the foramen magnum dimensions, which may prove useful and reliable in predicting sex in partial remains by discriminant function analysis when other methods tend to be inconclusive