Introduction

Relationship that exist between different part of the body and height had been of great interest to anthropologists, forensic and medical scientists for many years [₁₂₃]. This is because of the increase in the number of catastrophic events causing mass deaths from natural or man made errors. Such disasters like flooding, tsunamis, earthquakes, plane crashes, train crashes , terrorist attacks usually requires the identification of victims from fragmentary and dismembered human remains [₁₂₃]. Earlier reports have shown that relationship exists between stature and hand length and foot length [₂₃₄₅], stature and shoe dimension [₆₇] stature, tibial length and malleolar breadth [₈]. This study was designed to investigate the relationship between 2D and 4D lengths to height and weight.

Materials And Methods

Subjects and Anthropometry

Statistical Analyses

Results

Table 1 presents the sex differences in the parameters considered in the study. In all, the males were significantly (P<0.001) higher the females. Tables 2 and 3 present the correlation coefficients, prediction equations and probabilities of 2D and 4D in males and females respectively. The regression equations showed significant (P <0.001) ability to predict right 2D from left 2D, right 4D from left 4D and vice versa.

Table 4 presents the regression of height on 2D and 4D in males and females. Height could be predicted in males with significant assurance from right 2D and left 4D. In females a different prediction probability was obtained, height be predicted with significant probability only in left 2D.

Multivariate regression analyses of second and fourth digit lengths are presented in Table 5. Digit lengths are highly predictive of height in both males and females (P<0.001) but weight showed lower predictive significance in males and females (P=0.02 and P=0.04) respectively.

Figure 1

Table 1: Descriptive characteristics of parameters studied in males and females. Values in parenthesis are minimum to maximum.

Figure 2

Table 2: Predictive equation of height from right and left second and fourth digit lengths in males and females.

Figure 3

Table 3: Regression equations of 2D and 4D in males (n = 650)

Figure 4

Table 4: Prediction equations of 2D and 4D in females (n= 431)

Figure 5

Table 5: Regression of height on 2D and 4D in males and females

Discussion

This study was designed to see if there is relationship between 2D, 4D lengths with height and weight. This was to investigate if these parameters could be used to predict height and weight, as different body parts have been used for the prediction of height and weight for the possible identification of individuals in forensic investigation [₂₃₇₈].

The present study has demonstrated a significant ability to estimate 2D from 4D and 4D from 2D in both males and females and from both right and left hands. Predictive equations generated for heights from right and left 2D and 4D showed that the predictive values is higher in the males than in the females. This is in agreement with findings of El-Megaly et al [₈] reporting the same phenomena in establishing stature from tibial length and malleolar breadth in an Egyptian sample, and Krishan and Sharma [₃] reporting on estimation of height from hand and foot length in a north Indian population. This implies that the ability to accurately predict height from 2D and 4D is greater in the males than the females due to the lower values of standard error of estimates [₃].

The result of the present study has shown that the lengths of 2D and 4D can successfully be used to estimate height and to a lower degree weight by forensic scientists during the process of identifying remains. But it should also be realised that there are population variation in anthropometric dimensions, which are influenced by genetics and environmental factors [₈₁₁₁₂]. So the regression equations generated from this study may only be very useful in estimating height and weight in Nigerians.

The results of the linear regression of right and left 2D and 4D in males and females clearly shows that the length 2D and 4D in the right hand could be used to predict 2D and 4D lengths in the left hand with high degree of significance. This is useful in forensic investigation where dismembered bodies are required to be fully identified.

Multivariate analysis of the right and 2D and 4D length on height and weight, it was observed that the 2D and 4D gave higher correlations and significance than weight in both males females. The predictive ability is higher in the males than the females.

In conclusion, it was observed from this study that second and fourth digits lengths could be used as a utility in estimating height and weight, and digits in right hand could estimating accurately the lengths of digits in the left hand and vice versa.

Acknowledgement

Correspondence to

Barnabas Danborno Department of Anatomy Faculty of Medicine, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria Tel: 08020655284; Email: sbdanborno@abu.edu.ng