Niel Mélissa, Chaumoître Kathia, Adalian Pascal
Aix Marseille Univ, CNRS, EFS, ADES, 13007 Marseille, France.
Service de Radiologie et Imagerie Médicale, Hôpital Nord, CHU Marseille, Assistance Publique des Hôpitaux de Marseille, 13015 Marseille, France.
Biology (Basel). 2022 Jan 27;11(2):200. doi: 10.3390/biology11020200.
The coupling between maturation and growth in the age estimation of young individuals with altered growth processes was analyzed in this study, whereby the age was determined using a geometric morphometrics method. A medical sample comprising 223 fetuses and infants was used to establish the method. The shapes, quantified by elliptic Fourier analysis, were grouped into consensus stages to characterize the maturation process along increasing age groups. Each maturation stage was "coupled" to biometry by defining an associated femur length range. The method was tested on a validation sample of 42 normal individuals and a pathological sample of 114 individuals whose pathologies were medically assessed. Couplings were present in 90.48% of the normal sample and 77.19% of the pathological sample. The method was able to detect "uncoupling" (i.e., possibly altered growth) in more than 22.8% of samples, even if there was no visible traces of pathology on bones in most cases. In conclusion, experts should be warned that living conditions may cause alterations in the development of young individuals in terms of uncoupling, and that the age-at-death estimation based on long bone biometry could be biased. In a forensic context, when age has been estimated in cases where uncoupling is present, experts should be careful to take potential inaccuracies into account when forming their conclusions.
本研究分析了生长过程改变的年轻个体年龄估计中成熟与生长之间的耦合关系，其中年龄是使用几何形态测量学方法确定的。使用一个包含223名胎儿和婴儿的医学样本建立该方法。通过椭圆傅里叶分析量化的形状被分组为共识阶段，以表征随着年龄组增加的成熟过程。通过定义相关的股骨长度范围，将每个成熟阶段与生物测量学“耦合”。该方法在42名正常个体的验证样本和114名经医学评估病理情况的个体的病理样本上进行了测试。正常样本中90.48%和病理样本中77.19%存在耦合。该方法能够在超过22.8%的样本中检测到“解耦”（即可能改变的生长），即使在大多数情况下骨骼上没有可见的病理痕迹。总之，应提醒专家，生活条件可能会在解耦方面导致年轻个体发育改变，并且基于长骨生物测量学的死亡年龄估计可能存在偏差。在法医背景下，当在存在解耦的案件中估计年龄时，专家在形成结论时应谨慎考虑潜在的不准确因素。
