Sex Differences of the Hip Bone Among Several Populations

Abstract

On the basis of the hip bones (os coxae) of 103 Japanese,102 American White and 97 American Blacks, sexual dimorphism was ascertained by means of three dimensions (pubic and ischial lengths and iliac width) and three indices (ischium-pubis, ilium-ischium and ilium-pubis). In relation to sex differences of the hip bone, the shape component seemed to be more important than the size component in each combination of the dimensions, except for a pair of ischial length and iliac width. A pair of pubic and ischial lengths was the most useful relation for sexing the hip bone among all combinations of these dimensions. In the distribution of the ischium-pubis index, the overlap samples between the male and female series were 7.8% in Japanese,5.9% in American Whites and 7.2% in American Blacks. With the discriminant function of the pudic and ischial lengths, probabilities of misdiagnosis are 3.48% in Japanese,5.82% in American Whites and 4.50% in American Blacks.