Codinha Sónia
Departamento de Antropologia, Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia da Universidade de Coimbra, Rua Arco da Traição, 3000-056 Coimbra, Portugal.
Forensic Sci Int. 2009 Jan 30;184(1-3):80.e1-7. doi: 10.1016/j.forsciint.2008.11.011. Epub 2009 Jan 4.
In recent years there has been an important increment of studies on the determination of facial soft tissue thicknesses for craniofacial identification purposes. In spite of this, there is no information on the particularities of the facial soft tissue depths for the Portuguese adult population. In order to address this lack, the soft tissue thicknesses of a Portuguese cadaver sample of 151 individuals, 103 males and 48 females with ages between 20 and 99 years old, autopsied at the South Branch of the National Institute of Legal Medicine, were measured using published needle puncture methods at 20 anatomical points. The stature and weight of all cadavers were determined and their body mass index (BMI) calculated. In order to prevent post-mortem distortion, soft tissue depths were assessed prior to the individual's autopsy in cadavers whose time of death did not exceed 24h. From these data, descriptive statistics were calculated and the average soft tissue depths were reported considering the BMI and the sex of the cadavers. In general, males were found to have greater soft tissue depths than females but some landmarks showed the opposite while others presented the same values for both sexes. In spite of this, almost all the differences among the sexes were found to be not statistically significant. The Post Hoc Gabriel test performed between the different BMI categories for mixed sexes and for each sex suggested BMI-related differences on the soft tissue thicknesses, although these vary considerably within and between the sexes with no linear correspondence between the anatomical landmarks. These results, point not only to the necessity to present data in accordance with the sexual dimorphism, but also to consider the BMI as an important variable for better results in the achievement of the likeness of the deceased individuals in both two-dimensional and three-dimensional facial approximations or superimpositions. Additionally, evidence of interpopulation differences in the average soft tissue thicknesses were observed by the comparison of this data set with similar studies from Caucasian groups with different geographic origin.
近年来，出于颅面识别目的而进行的面部软组织厚度测定研究有了显著增加。尽管如此，关于葡萄牙成年人群面部软组织深度的特殊性却尚无相关信息。为了填补这一空白，我们对葡萄牙国家法医学研究所南部分支机构解剖的151例个体（103名男性和48名女性，年龄在20至99岁之间）的尸体样本进行了研究，使用已发表的针刺方法在20个解剖点测量了软组织厚度。测定了所有尸体的身高和体重，并计算了他们的身体质量指数（BMI）。为防止死后变形，在死亡时间不超过24小时的尸体中，于个体尸检前评估软组织深度。根据这些数据，计算了描述性统计量，并报告了考虑尸体BMI和性别的平均软组织深度。总体而言，发现男性的软组织深度大于女性，但一些标志点显示出相反的情况，而另一些标志点在两性中呈现相同的值。尽管如此，几乎所有两性之间的差异在统计学上均无显著意义。对混合性别以及各性别不同BMI类别之间进行的事后加布里埃尔检验表明，软组织厚度存在与BMI相关的差异，尽管这些差异在性别内部和性别之间有很大变化，且解剖标志点之间不存在线性对应关系。这些结果不仅表明有必要根据性别二态性呈现数据，还表明应将BMI视为一个重要变量，以便在二维和三维面部近似或叠加中更好地实现死者个体的相似度。此外，通过将该数据集与来自不同地理区域的白种人群的类似研究进行比较，观察到了平均软组织厚度的人群间差异证据。
