Upper Limb Anthropometric Measurements of Iranian Medical Students for Estimating Sex and Stature

Stature and sex estimation according to surface anatomical landmarks is applicable for personal identification in forensic medicine.

The present study aimed to prepare a comprehensive reference of four main upper limb anthropometric dimensions in Iranian adults and make a formula for predicting sex and stature according to them.

In this cross-sectional study, four main anthropometric dimensions of the upper limb, including arm length, forearm length, hand length, and hand width of 280 Iranian adults aged 20 - 24 years, were measured according to surface anatomical landmarks. To determine sex differences, we divided the collected measures into two groups: (1) study (120 males and 120 females); and (2) test (20 males and 20 females) groups. Sexual dimorphism indicator and discriminant functions were conducted on the study group and were validated according to the test group. The relativity of stature with measured dimensions was done by a simple linear regression test in the male and female groups.

All upper limb measurements were potent to determine gender, but forearm length displayed the highest accuracy of 94.2 - 95% and 95 - 100% for the study and test groups, respectively. Regression analysis revealed that arm length had the highest correlation with stature (22.2% for males and 18.41% for females).

We prepared a sex and stature estimation formula based on four upper limb anthropometric dimensions in Iranian adults that can be used in the forensic and clinical fields.