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Palatine Sutures as Age Indicator: A Controlled Study in the Elderly
Author(s) -
Beauthier JeanPol,
Lefevre Philippe,
Meunier Maurice,
Orban Rosine,
Polet Caroline,
Werquin JeanPierre,
Quatrehomme Gérald
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
journal of forensic sciences
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.715
H-Index - 96
eISSN - 1556-4029
pISSN - 0022-1198
DOI - 10.1111/j.1556-4029.2009.01237.x
Subject(s) - poison control , medicine , injury prevention , gerontology , forensic engineering , dentistry , medical emergency , engineering
Vault sutures have proven their low reliability for estimating age at death in individual forensic science cases. We broke down the palatine sutures of 134 skulls (with known sex and age at time of death) into 15 subparts and 5 stages of fusion to obtain a mean coefficient of obliteration ( C p) which was then linked to five age classes. We completed this study with multiple regression equations of total palatine suture scores. We compared our results with those obtained using the Mann method on the one hand and classically segmented and scored ectocranial suture age determination methods on the other. Palatine sutures generally do not estimate age at death any better than cranial vault sutures. Despite the partly subjective aspect of suture study, palatine suture observation contributes additional information to age‐range estimation, especially in old and very old subjects where other methods lose their effectiveness.