Estimation of Maximum Femoral Length from Fragmentary Femur

Lee, Je Hoon; Kim, Deog Im; Kwak, Dai Soon; Lee, U Young; Kim, Yi Suk; Park, Dae Kyoon; Han, Ki Hwan; Han, Seung Ho

Abstract

Positive identification of human body remains is one of the most important tasks in mass disaster management. In general, anthropometric studies of long bones help to take informations such as race, gender, age, and stature of an individual. The previous reports estimated the stature from the femur length or from its fragments. One hundred ninety five (male 120, female 75) human bodies were examined. We measured 11 items which related breadth and length of femur. The highest correlation coefficients showed in the distance from most proximal point of intercondylar fossa to midpoint of lesser trochanter (IFLM) and distance from most proximal point of intercondylar fossa to most proximal point of greater trochanter (IFGP). The regression formulae were obtained from the various measurement of the fragmentary femur. With known values, the expected maximum femoral length was as follows. When using IFLM, maximum femoral length (male) = 21.788+/-1.278*IFLM+/-9.714 maximum femoral length (female) = 33.892+/-1.224*IFLM+/-11.311 maximum femoral length (combined) = 10.201+/-1.310*IFLM+/-6.746 When using IFGP, maximum femoral length (male) = 1.162*IFGP-8.770+/-8.882 maximum femoral length (female) = 1.117*IFGP+/-7.265+/-13.604 maximum femoral length (combined) = 1.149*IFGP-3.860+/-5.827 Consequently, these formulae are useful to persume the maximal length of femur for the unidentified fragments of femur in Korean.