Sex determination based on dimensions of wrist and metacarpals in contemporary Iranian population

Sex estimation is one of the most important steps of identification in forensic medicine. This study aimed to estimate the sex using the anthropometric variables of metacarpal bones in the Iranian population. In this population-based study, the anthropometric parameters of the right and left metacarpal bones were measured on X-ray images of 400 Iranian males and females aged 20 to 70 years. Discriminating function analysis was used to estimate the sex and obtain its formula. A significant difference was observed between the sexes in all measured anthropometric indices (p<0.001). In the stepwise diagnostic analysis model, the diagnostic accuracy was 77.8-81.9% for the right and 75.5-79.3% for the left metacarpal bones. The results of this study showed that the dimensions of the metacarpal bones can be useful in sex estimation.