Sex Predictability by Using Mandibular Canine Index

Cranial and Odontological Methods for Sex Estimation—A Scoping Review

The estimation of sex from osteological and dental records has long been an interdisciplinary field of dentistry, forensic medicine and anthropology alike, as it concerns all the above mentioned specialties. The aim of this article is to review the current literature regarding methods used for sex estimation based on the skull and the teeth, covering articles published between January 2015 and July 2022. New methods and new approaches to old methods are constantly emerging in this field, therefore resulting in the need to summarize the large amount of data available. Morphometric, morphologic and biochemical analysis were reviewed in living populations, autopsy cases and archaeological records. The cranial and odontological sex estimation methods are highly population-specific and there is a great need for these methods to be applied to and verified on more populations. Except for DNA analysis, which has a prediction accuracy of 100%, there is no other single method that can achieve such accuracy in predicting sex from cranial or odontological records.

Applicability of the mandibular canine index for sex estimation: a systematic review

Background

The Mandibular Canine Index (MCI) comprises a method of sex estimation by teeth that presents controversial results in the literature.

Main body

This systematic review aims to expose whether MCI can be used as a method of reliable sex estimation. A literature search was performed using the keywords “canine,” “sex,” “gender,” “determination,” “estimation,” “dimorphism,” “assessment,” “forensic” in the databases Pubmed, Scopus, Lilacs, Scielo, and Web of Science. In addition, manual searches were carried out on the reference lists of the selected articles to cover the largest number of articles of interest as possible. Studies that performed the measurements only on maxillary canines, scientific conferences abstract books, case reports and literature reviews were excluded. The assessment of methodological quality and risk of bias was carried out based on a checklist for cross-sectional studies and another for accuracy studies. Thus, 53 articles were selected, 13 of which were accurate and 40 were cross-sectional. All accuracy articles were assessed as low risk. Among cross-sectional articles, seven were considered to be of low risk, 31 of moderate risk, and two of high risk. The accuracy of the sex estimate by MCI was verified and, despite varying among studies, the minimum and maximum values found were, respectively, 20% and 87.5% for women and 40.6% and 94% for men.

Conclusion

The accuracy of the MCI was variable and should be used with caution and as an auxiliary method of sex estimation.