CORRELATION BETWEEN CROWN LENGTH OF PERMANENT MAXILLARY ANTERIOR TEETH, FACIAL HEIGHT AND LENGTH OF HAND DIGITS WITH THE STATURE OF AN INDIVIDUAL

BACKGROUND: Personal identification is defined as establishing the identity of an individual. One of the objectives of the medicolegal investigation is to estimate stature or height from various skeletal remains and body parts brought for examination. Teeth can be considered as an exceptional resource material for forensic investigations because of its high resistance capacity to withstand high temperatures in disasters during natural or manmade calamities. Teeth play a vital role in individual identification for medicolegal circumstances and identification of unknown skeletal remains during mass casualties. We did a pioneer study to correlate anatomical crown length of maxillary anterior teeth, facial height and right-hand digits length with the stature of an individual for personal identification in Southern Kerala population by formulating an equation. METHODS: A total of 250 volunteers participated in this study. The stature and anatomical crown length of maxillary anterior teeth, facial height, length of right-hand digits were measured. Statistical analysis was performed using computer software, Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 16.0 for Windows Operating System. Correlation between anatomical crown length of maxillary anterior teeth, facial height, length of right-hand digits with the stature of an individual was analyzed by Pearson correlation test. Regression analysis was used to get equations for estimation of stature from these parameters. CONCLUSION: The present study is possibly the first in Southern Kerala population that has attempted to estimate stature from anatomical crown length of permanent maxillary anterior teeth, facial height, and right-hand digits length by formulating a regression equation. We found some positive correlation between facial height and right-hand digits length with the stature of the individual. But there was no significant correlation between anatomical crown length of permanent maxillary anterior teeth with the stature of an individual. Although no definitive correlations could be established between anatomical crown length of permanent maxillary anterior teeth and stature or body height, the use of the established parameters will be helpful in the fields of forensic odontology and anthropology.