Significance & Correlation of Paranasal Sinuses Volume and Foramen Magnum in Forensics: A Cone Beam Computed Tomography Study

Anatomical structures like the paranasal sinuses and the foramen magnum (FM) are typical and specific because they are found in the human body. In CBCT, these entities can be well demarcated and using specialized software, a three-dimensional (3D) volume model can be generated. This retrospective institutional study aimed to assess the reliability of volumetric measurements of paranasal sinuses in correlation with morphometrics of FM for age and gender determination using CBCT. Samples of 200 full skull CBCT images between 20 and 69 years were utilized and equally distributed among gender. ITK-SNAP 3.8.0 software was used to calculate the volumes of paranasal sinuses. The sagittal diameter and the transverse diameters were measured, and the circumference of the FM was then calculated. Using discriminant functional analysis and multivariate regression analysis, the correlation of paranasal sinus volumes and the FM were classified with respect to age and gender. Males exhibited higher mean values for the volumes of the frontal sinus, bilateral maxillary sinus, right sphenoid sinus, transverse diameter, and circumference of the FM in comparison to females. The overall accuracy rate to correctly classify gender was found to be 96.5%. In the multivariate regression model utilized for age estimation, the overall analysis of parameters in group-wise settings revealed that the significant predictors for age estimation included the volume of the left maxillary sinus, the circumference of the FM, and the volume of the right sphenoid sinus. The calculated regression analysis for the combined sample yielded a value of 43735.755, with a notably significant P value of .001. The study’s results were highly significant and deemed satisfactory.