Use of Length of Radius for Estimation of Stature in Bengali Women

BACKGROUND Measurement of stature of an individual is of importance in forensic and medicolegal purpose. It can be done by direct measurement of the height of an individual or a cadaver. This is not always possible because the cadaver may be partially putrefied or destroyed, or it may so happen that only a body part is available. In this study, we tried to estimate the stature from the length of radius in living subjects. METHODS We took measurements (in centimeters) of height, length of left & right radii of 510 Bengali healthy women between the age of 21 and 50 years. Scatter plot was drawn with regression lines to correlate height and left & right radius length. We applied multiple linear regressions to develop a predictive equation for stature, based on age and radius length. Its validity was tested by drawing Bland-Altman plot of 30 additional randomly selected subjects, about their estimated height and actual height. RESULTS Height of the person showed strong correlation with length of left radius (r = 0.945, p < 0.001) and that of right radius (r = 0.969, p<0.001). The predictive equation for estimation of stature of Bengali women was H = 39.2558 + 0.3671 x LR + 4.4588 x RR - 0.003692 x age +/- 1.6546 where H = height of the women in cm, LR = left radius length in cm, RR = right radius length in cm, age in years. CONCLUSIONS Stature of Bengali women can be estimated from the length of their left and right radius applying the above equation.