Discriminant Function Analysis of Deciduous Teeth to Determine Sex

Abstract

<p>Studies using deciduous tooth crown measurements have concluded that statistically significant differences between males and females are not as effective for discriminating between the sexes as are the results from permanent tooth measurements. The present study measured the mesiodistal and faciolingual crown diameters of the maxillary and mandibular deciduous teeth of 162 dental casts from children, age 3-4 years, and the permanent first molars of 84 casts from the same children, age 16 years, of the Burlington Growth Study. The data displayed significant differences between the sexes for all 40 deciduous diameters at the 5% level of significance, and for 37 diameters at the 1% level. Using 3 to 5 deciduous measurements, the discriminant analyses of several samplings of these children produced discriminant functions in which 76%-90% of holdout samples are correctly classified by sex. Using combinations of deciduous and permanent measurements, 83%-85% of the holdout samples are correctly classified. The results of the univariate and multivariate analyses of the Burlington sample were compared to several earlier studies of deciduous and permanent teeth of both modern and archaeological populations. The Burlington group proved to be the most dimorphic in the deciduous teeth and that dimorphism in the deciduous teeth was within the range published for the permanent teeth in several other studies. The expression of sexual dimorphism in the deciduous teeth varies both withm and among populations. The level of classification accuracy using discriminant analysis of the deciduous teeth approaches the accuracy levels for the pennanent teeth.</p>