New models to estimate fetal and young infant age with the pars basilaris biometry

Area of Science:

• Forensic anthropology
• Developmental biology
• Medical imaging

Background:

• The pars basilaris of the occipital bone is frequently recovered intact from fetal and infant remains.
• Existing age-at-death estimation methods using this bone suffer from methodological and statistical biases.
• Accurate age estimation is crucial for forensic investigations involving young individuals.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop novel, statistically validated age prediction formulas for fetuses and infants.
• To address the limitations and biases of previously published age estimation methods.
• To provide a reliable and precise tool for forensic age assessment.

Main Methods:

• Creation of new age prediction models using a learning sample of 208 fetal and infant CT scans.
• Validation of two statistically robust models with a 95% reliability interval.
• Testing on an independent sample of 68 individuals without developmental pathologies.

Main Results:

• The new models achieved an average of 97.06% correct age estimates.
• This significantly outperforms previous methods, which had less than 26.6% accuracy and tended to overestimate age.
• The formulas provide reliable and precise age estimations up to two postnatal months.

Conclusions:

• The developed age estimation formulas are highly accurate and reliable for forensic applications.
• The study offers an automated tool (Excel spreadsheet) for easy and quick application of the method.
• This advancement improves the accuracy of age determination in forensic cases involving fetuses and infants.