ISSN: 0022-1198
CODEN: JFSCA
Page Count: 8

The Effects of Aging on the Comparability of Antemortem and Postmortem Radiographs
Barondess, DA
Associate professor and graduate student, Michigan State University, MI

Sauer, NJ
Associate professor and graduate student, Michigan State University, MI

Brantley, RE
Radiologist, Department of Radiology, E. W. Sparrow Hospital, MI

(Received 16 November 1987; accepted 22 December 1987)

Abstract

To study the effects of aging on the ability to make positive identifications from radiographs of the postcranial axial skeleton, we collected early and later exposed abdominal X-rays from five patients whose period of treatment spanned from ten to twenty-three years. Corresponding lumbar vertebrae from each pair of radiographs were compared for similarities and differences in several of the criteria that have been reported as useful for individualization. These include shapes of the bodies, spinous processes, transverse processes, pedicles, and osteophytic extrusions. It is our conclusion that even though bone is a flexible tissue and changes constantly during life, aspects of the criteria chosen are quite stable and that even after two-and-a-half decades the ability to make positive identifications from postcranial axial material is not necessarily diminished.

Keywords:
physical anthropology, X-ray analyses, musculoskeleral system, human identification

Paper ID: JFS12556J
DOI: 10.1520/JFS12556J
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