Sex determination from os sacrum by postmortem CT
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Updated: May 23, 2026
Scanning Skeletal Remains for Bone Mineral Density in Forensic Contexts
Published on: January 29, 2018
Wolf-Dieter Zech1, Gary Hatch, Lea Siegenthaler
1Centre of Forensic Imaging and Virtopsy, Institute of Forensic Medicine, University of Bern, Switzerland. wolf-dieter.zech@irm.unibe.ch
Abstract:
Sex determination in forensic practice is performed mostly on sexually dimorphic bones, including pelvic bones such as the os sacrum. Postmortem CT scan provides an easy and fast method for depicting and measuring bone structures prior to elaborate autopsy preparations. To develop a simple and objective method for sex determination in postmortem CT, metric data were evaluated from CT images of the pelvic-associated os sacrum of 95 corpses (49 men and 46 women) from the Canton of Bern, Switzerland. Discriminant function analysis of the data showed that the best accuracy in determining sex was 76.8% and 78.9% with two different observers. It is concluded that measuring the os sacrumin postmortem CT for sex determination has moderate accuracy and should only be applied in combination with other methods.
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