Retrospective evaluation of the applicability of vieth method in forensic age determination from proximal humerus epiphysis with 1.5t and 3.0t MR imaging

Forensic age determination is important in many areas of law, especially for Criminal Law and Civil Law. In this study, we aimed to use the 5 stage method proposed by Vieth et al. for proximal tibia and distal femur epiphyses to evaluate the applicability of same method to proximal humerus epiphysis and the applicability in age determination in our country. The MRI of 629 patients, aged between 10 – 30 years, who underwent shoulder MRI with 1.5 Tesla (T) and 3.0T MRI scanner by the Department of Radiology of Bursa Uludağ University Medical Faculty were evaluated by two observers for age estimation. 388 of the cases were male and 241 were female. In coronal oblique orientation, images in T1 weighted turbo spin echo (T1-w TSE) and T2 weighted turbu spin echo (T2-w TSE SPAIR) sequences which obtained from 1.5T and 3.0T MRG scanners were evaluated. For 1.5T MRI; the minimum ages which evaluated as stage 5 and 6 were; 17,42 and 22,02 years for females, 18,77 and 21,10 years for males, respectively. For 3.0T MRI; 18,66 and 21,06 years for females, 18,85 and 22,69 years for males, respectively. According to the 1.5T MR images, statistically significant difference was seen between the genders in stage 2 cases. Intra-observer and inter-observer agreement levels were found to be very good for both MRI scanners (κ> 0.80) The data obtained from our study shows that; according to the staging method proposed by Vieth et al.; stages 5 and 6 of proximal humeral epiphysis in men and stage 6 of proximal humeral epiphysis in women can be used to determine the majority in Turkish population. We believe that this staging method is an applicable method for researchers for age determination from the proximal humerus epiphysis.