Determination of sex from the tibia of adult Turkish cadavers

The aim of this research is to determine sex from the tibia. The tibia is an ideal bone because it resists erosive forces and keeps its anatomical shape for a long time even after being buried. Additionally, we tried to obtain a higher discrimination rate by using the biarticular breadth that was accepted as the most valid criterion in previous sex discrimination studies which were directed to the proximal part of the tibia. Right and left tibiae from 55 randomly selected adult Turkish cadavers (25 to 68 years) were measured to the nearest millimeter performed with a caliper; a total of six dimensions, one from the proximal and five from the distal ends, was measured. Canonical discriminant function test was performed to develop formulae and assess the accuracy of the technique. The results indicated that classification accuracy ranged from 89% in the right and 87% in the left for biarticular breadth. There was a minimal difference between the sides and the height of the medial malleolus. In conclusion, the distal and proximal dimensions of the tibia are highly discriminative as the sexual dimorphs in this Turkish sample. The study compares well with those on blacks and whites of North America and South Africa.