Objectives: Biological profiling is necessary for skeletonised remains. The traditionally used linear measurement has low reliability and size-oriented, whereas geometric morphometric (GM) is reliable in characterising the shape. However, studies of frontal sinus (FS) among Malaysians using GM method are unexplored. This study aims to evaluate FS pattern distribution and morphology differences of FS between sex, race and age among Malaysians using GM as a novel approach.
Methods: Skull radiographs of 504 adult Malaysians comprising males and females of Malay, Chinese and Indian races aged of ≥20 years old, were retrieved from University Malaya Medical Centre. FS patterns were descriptively classified according to its existence, symmetrical, dominance and lobulations. Then, eight landmarks were applied to the radiographs using TPSDig2 software. GM analysis including Principal component (PC) analysis, Procrustes analysis of variance ANOVA, canonical variates analysis (CVA) and discriminant function analysis (DFA), were performed using MorphoJ software.
Results: Bilateral presence of FS is common (95.4%). The first three PC exhibited 83.0% variation. ANOVA revealed significant differences in centroid size and shape of FS between different sex. DFA n demonstrated average classification accuracy of 80.6% for sex estimation, 57.4% for race estimation and 53.5% for age estimation.
Conclusion: Pattern distribution of FS is unique between individuals. The absence of FS is rare, making it useful for forensic identification. FS is a valuable tool for sex identification, but not reliable for race and age estimation among Malaysians. This is the first such study looking at the FS for profiling amongst Malaysian population.
Keywords: biological profiling; forensic anthropology; frontal sinus; geometric morphometric; malaysian population
Ethical statement: UMMC-Medical Research Ethics Committee (MREC) (MECID No: 2022119 – 10937).
Funding statement: Faculty of Medicine Research Grant- 600-TNCPI 5/3/DDF (MEDIC) (004/2023)