Title:Enamel Hypoplasia as a Marker for Sex Estimation: A Review
Volume: 1
Author(s): Inês Morais Caldas*, Áurea Madureira-Carvalho and Maria Lurdes Pereira
Affiliation:
- Department Of Forensic Odontology, Faculty of Dental Medicine, University of Porto, Rua Dr. Manuel Pereira da
Silva, 4200-393 Porto, Portugal
- TOXRUN - Toxicology Research Unit, University Institute of Health Sciences,
CESPU, CRL, 4585-116 Gandra, Portugal
- Centre for Functional Ecology (CFE), Department of Life Sciences, University
of Coimbra, Calçada Martim de Freitas, 3000-456 Coimbra, Portugal
Keywords:
Forensic anthropology, sex estimation, sex differences, human identification, genetics, environmental factors, socioeconomic differences, stress markers.
Abstract: Changes in enamel during teeth development are permanently recorded, and some, like
enamel hypoplasia (EH), can be linked with stressful events. As males and females may respond
differently to stress, EH may have a different prevalence between the sexes. The present work
mainly aims to identify which factors may lead to the different EH types, analyse how they manifest
between sexes, and check if, in the presence of EH, one can infer about a person’s sex. Our
results point to occasional differences in EH prevalence in deciduous dentition between sexes, with
males displaying more EH. As for permanent dentition, EH prevalence appears to be strongly associated
with the living conditions, namely nutrition, occluding any possible sex bias. Therefore,
EH in deciduous teeth can be useful for sex estimation; yet, in permanent dentition, other factors
may be responsible for the differences and more studies, with control of environmental factors (for
example, twin studies) are needed to understand if sex differences exist as well.
