Barszcz Marta, Badach Elżbieta, Woźniak Krzysztof Jerzy
Chair and Department of Forensic Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Jagiellonian University Medical College, Grzegórzecka 16, 31-531, Kraków, Poland.
Doctoral School of Medical and Health Sciences, Jagiellonian University Medical College, Kraków, Poland.
Int J Legal Med. 2025 May 13. doi: 10.1007/s00414-025-03504-3.
Age estimation at the time of death is an integral part of forensic examination whenever unidentified human remains are discovered. In the case of adult remains the methods of age estimation are based mostly on the extent of age-related degenerative changes. The most controversial method makes use of cranial suture assessment. The purpose of this study was to verify whether assessment of cranial suture closure may be considered a useful and reliable method in forensic estimation of age at death. Postmortem computed tomography (PMCT) acquisitions of 114 male skulls were evaluated. Multiplanar reconstruction (MPR) to visualize the progress of suture closure in cross-sections was used. The inner and outer surfaces of each skull were visualized with the volume rendering technique (VRT). The coronal, sagittal, and lambdoid sutures were assessed with a suture closure scale introduced by Broca. Cranial suture assessment has been generally used for estimating age ranges, such as "younger/older", "under about 30 years of age", "over 50 years of age". Moreover, lambdoid suture closure is unrelated to age, except for its ectocranial part L3 on the left side. These observations indicate no major importance of this age estimation method in forensic anthropology.
每当发现身份不明的人类遗骸时，死亡时间的年龄估计都是法医检查不可或缺的一部分。对于成人遗骸，年龄估计方法主要基于与年龄相关的退行性变化程度。最具争议的方法是利用颅缝评估。本研究的目的是验证颅缝闭合评估是否可被视为法医死亡年龄估计中一种有用且可靠的方法。对114例男性颅骨的死后计算机断层扫描（PMCT）图像进行了评估。采用多平面重建（MPR）来观察横断面中缝闭合的进展情况。每个颅骨的内表面和外表面均采用容积再现技术（VRT）进行可视化。采用布罗卡提出的缝闭合量表对冠状缝、矢状缝和人字缝进行评估。颅缝评估通常用于估计年龄范围，如“较年轻/较年长”、“约30岁以下”、“50岁以上”。此外，人字缝闭合与年龄无关，除了左侧颅外部分L3。这些观察结果表明，这种年龄估计方法在法医人类学中没有重要意义。
