Sex Determination using Finger Length, Fingers Ratio, and Foot Dimensions in Fayoum Governorate

The determination of sex is statically the most important criterion in identification of identity as it excludes approximately half the population at risk. Sex assessment is one of the first essential steps in human identification, in both medico-legal cases and bio-archaeological contexts. Fragmentary human remains compromised by different types of inhumation or physical insults may frustrate the use of the traditional sex estimation methods, such as the analysis of the skull and pelvis. Currently, the application of discriminate functions to sex unidentified skeletal remains is steadily increasing. Human population exhibit some degree of sexual dimorphism which help sexual discrimination such that the male skeleton are on average larger than female thus allowing the size of skeleton to be used to estimate sex. The length of fingers and foot dimensions can determine the possibility of sexual dimorphism in addition to the interdigital ratios that do not depend on the body size, height, or age. Anthropometric measurements of the hand and foot dimensions (length and breadth) now become very important tool in sexual dimorphism detection in addition to the length of the small bone of the hand. This study aims to use of various parameters (length of the hand fingers and hand bone length, ratio between fingers) and foot dimensions ( length and breadth) in determination of the sex of individuals via the use of statistical analysis study was conducted on 200 Egyptian volunteer randomly selected adult 20-35 years old(100 male and 100 female), from Fayoum city. All subjects were healthy , had no fracture or disease . The mean age of the studied group of male volunteers is 21.40 years while that of female is 22.37 years old. The length of the fingers of males measured using a spreading caliber (the thumb is excluded) each finger given a number 2F, 3F, 4F, 5F for index ,middle ,ring and little finger respectively, same is done for the female. The finger length is the distance between the tips of the finger till proximal flexion crease of that finger. The ratio between fingers is measured and named after with sex possibility (2f/3f, 2f/4f, 2f/5f, 3f, 4f, 3f/5f, 4f/5f) . The results are analyzed statistically using SPSS program calculating the mean ,S.D and S.E. T test is used to compare different finger length ratio between fingers, and foot dimensions, and the p value is calculated. The results prove that the mean length of male fingers is more than that of female and the 2f/3f, 2f/4f, 2f/5f of the male and female right hand is highly significant less than0 . 001 also 3f/4f. While regarding to foot dimensions, the mean value were larger in left foot than the right. The foot length was the measurement with the greatest sex difference in both feet. In both feet, the length was the most sensitive variable 93% with 98% accuracy in left foot and 83% in right foot. In all age groups, the foot index in female was found to be more than 36, and less than 36 in male. Therefore, this value 36 can be used as deviation point for the determination of sex; hence, we can use these variants as sex determinant.