Stature estimation from cranial indices in students of Tehran University of Medical Sciences

Craniofacial measurements are one of the important parts of anthropology that determine the morphological features of the face and head. Considering the importance and position of Tehran University of Medical Sciences and the ethnic diversity of its students, the aim of this study is to measure the different variables of head, face and stature of medical students of Tehran University of Medical Sciences and to investigate the relationship between these variables.

In the present study, the variables of skull length, skull width and skull height were measured in 200 medical students of Tehran University of Medical Sciences. SPSS 16 software was used for statistical analysis. The P values less than 0.05 were considered statistically significant.

The variables of stature (P= 0.0001), skull length (P= 0.0001) and skull height (P = 0.044) showed significant differences between the two genders, but there was no significant difference in skull width between them (P= 0.865). According to the linear regression, there was a significant relationship between stature and cranial length ((P= 0.0001), (P= 0.016)) and also between stature and cranial height ((P= 0.0001), (P= 0.0001)) in all cases and in male subjects. In addition, there was a relation between stature and cranial width in female subjects (P= 0.013).

The existence of significant relationships between different variables of the cranium and stature makes it possible to estimate stature based on these variables.