Gender Determination Through the Morphometric Analysis of Foramen Magnum

Abstract

The foramen magnum is an important topographic opening in the occipital bone of skull, which connects cranial cavity and spinal canal. Foramen magnum is closely related to some vital neurological structures that relay information to and from the brain and spinal cord. These neurological structures are significant for many surgical approaches of cranio-cervical junction. Surgical procedures in the region of foramen magnum, are essential due to the high mortality rate. For this reason, anatomical variations of the structures which are related to foramen magnum as well as the morphological and morphometric variations of foramen magnum should be well known before any surgical procedure. The aim of this study was to determine gender based on morphometry analysis of foramen magnum using geometric method. The present study was performed on 799 patients of known sex and age (424 male and 375 female), who were came in the OPD of Radio-diagnosis department of Era’s Lucknow Medical Collage & Hospital, Era University for computerized tomography scanning of Head & Neck region. Radiological images also provide a patient’s clinical history ⁽¹⁴⁾. Thus, the process of exclusion in respect to patients with pathological conditions of the skull is achieved ⁽¹⁾. The anteroposterior and transverse dimensions of the foramen magnum was analysed in relation to age and sex. Variations in the shape and size of the foramen magnum was simultaneously observed between the gender. The objectives of this study were to improve data on the variations of different morphological and morphometric parameters of the foramen magnum in the north Indian population and also establish the association with age and gender determination.