Department of Legal Medicine, Graduate School of Medicine, Chiba University, Inohana 1-8-1, Chuo-ku, Chiba City, Chiba Prefecture 260-8670, Japan.
Int J Legal Med. 2013 Sep;127(5):1005-11. doi: 10.1007/s00414-013-0883-y. Epub 2013 Jun 13.
Closure of cranial sutures progresses with age; therefore, macroscopic assessment of cranial sutures has been used as one method of age estimation. Postmortem computed tomography (PMCT), which many forensic medical departments and institutes have begun to adopt, has the potential to simplify the gathering of information from cranial sutures for both surface and cross-sectional evaluation. To examine the feasibility of age estimation by cross-sectional multidetector computed tomography images of the sagittal suture, PMCT findings of 125 subjects of known age and sex were retrospectively reviewed. The sagittal suture was divided into four segments, and 20 cross-sectional slices from each segment were analyzed. These slices were each categorized by visual evaluation into one of the seven stages defined by Harth et al. according to the degree of closure. The mean stage value of 20 slices was calculated for each segment. We were able to evaluate cross-sectional images of the sagittal suture by PMCT, and a positive correlation between age and closure degree was observed. Despite the prediction interval achieved with this method not being superior to traditional macroscopic or flat-panel CT assessment, multidetector CT is a potentially useful tool, in conjunction with other methods, for age estimation, particularly in adult females and in cases where only a skull is the sole remain.
颅骨缝的闭合随着年龄的增长而进展；因此，宏观评估颅骨缝已被用作一种年龄估计方法。越来越多法医学部门和机构开始采用的死后计算机断层扫描（PMCT），有可能简化颅骨缝的表面和横截面评估的信息收集。为了检查通过矢状缝的横截面多排计算机断层扫描图像进行年龄估计的可行性，回顾性地审查了 125 名已知年龄和性别的受试者的 PMCT 发现。矢状缝分为四个节段，每个节段分析 20 个横截面切片。根据哈思等人定义的闭合程度，将这些切片通过视觉评估分别归入七个阶段之一。计算每个节段 20 个切片的平均阶段值。我们能够通过 PMCT 评估矢状缝的横截面图像，并观察到年龄与闭合程度之间存在正相关。尽管这种方法的预测区间并不优于传统的宏观或平板 CT 评估，但多排 CT 是一种潜在有用的工具，特别是在成年女性和只有颅骨是唯一遗骸的情况下，与其他方法结合使用，可以进行年龄估计。
