Estimation of total Length of Femur From Its Fragments in South Indian Population

Establishment of identity of deceased person also assumes a great medicolegal importance. To establish the identity of a person, stature is one of the criteria. To know stature of individual, length of long bones is needed.

To determine the lengths of the femoral fragments and to compare with the total length of femur in south Indian population, which will help to estimate the stature of the individual using standard regression formulae.

A number of 150, 72 left and 78 right adult fully ossified dry processed femora were taken. The femur bone was divided into five segments by taking predetermined points. Length of five segments and maximum length of femur were measured to the nearest millimeter. The values were obtained in cm [mean±S.D.] and the mean total length of femora on left and right side was measured. The proportion of segments to the total length was also calculated which will help for the stature estimation using standard regression formulae.

The mean total length of femora on left side was 43.54 ± 2.7 and on right side it was 43.42 ± 2.4. The measurements of the segments-1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 were 8.06± 0.71, 8.25± 1.24, 10.35 ± 2.21, 13.94 ± 1.93 and 2.77 ± 0.53 on left side and 8.09 ± 0.70, 8.30 ± 1.34, 10.44 ± 1.91, 13.50 ± 1.54 and 3.09 ± 0.41 on right side of femur.

The sample size was 150, 72 left and 78 right and 'p' value of all the segments was significant (‹0.001). When comparison was made between segments of right and left femora, the 'p' value of segment-5 was found to be ‹0.001. Comparison between different segments of femur showed significance in all the segments.