Estimation of missing mandible from the skull using postmortem CT images.

Skeletal remains often have missing mandibles owing to the environment in which the corpse was placed or damage caused by an animal. Loss of the mandible reduces the accuracy of skull identification. Although several studies have validated methods for estimating mandibular morphology from conventional anthropological measurements using skull specimens, there are no reports using three-dimensional computed tomography (3DCT) images. Here, we examined methods for establishing the mandibular morphology from the remaining skulls using postmortem computed tomography (PMCT) images. We used PMCT images from 200 Japanese subjects as samples. After verifying the morphological correlation between the cranium and mandible, we created and validated estimation models using multiple regression analysis (stepwise method) for seven sites that were necessary for understanding the morphology of the mandible. Among the regression models, the estimated model for bicondylar breadth had the highest coefficient of determination (adjR

Informations de copyright

Copyright © 2023 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Déclaration de conflit d'intérêts

Declaration of Competing Interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.