ISSN: 0022-1198
CODEN: JFSCA
Published Online: 25 May 2005
Page Count: 4

Frontal Sinuses for Identification: Qualityof Classifications, Possible Error and Potential Corrections
Mirtella, D
Institute of Legal Medicine, University of Macerata,

Rollo, FU
Laboratory of Archaeo-Anthropology/Ancient DNA, University of Camerino,

Ferrante, L
Institute of Biochemical Biotechnologies, Faculty of Medicine, Polytechnical University of Marches,

Cingolani, M
Institute of Legal Medicine, University of Macerata,

Cameriere, R
Institute of Legal Medicine, University of Macerata,

(Received 26 August 2004; accepted 29 January 2005)

Abstract

Many studies have examined the characteristics of the frontal sinuses and their use for forensic purposes, particularly when an individual is edentulous. One of the most widespread classification systems is that proposed by Yoshino et al. The aim of this study was to improve the performance of Yoshino's method for identifying unknown skeletal remains by replacing the first two morphological items, frontal sinus size and bilateral asymmetry, by SOR¹ =left frontal sinus area/left orbit area, and SOR² =right frontal sinus area/right orbit area. According to the bivariate distribution of SOR=(SOR¹, SOR²) and available data, we also estimated the probability of positive misclassification.

Keywords:
forensic science, frontal sinus, personal identification, identification probability, forensic anthropology

Paper ID: JFS2004343
DOI: 10.1520/JFS2004343
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