Steele and McKern's indirect method of estimating maximum femur length in an indigenous population of East Godavari district in Andhra Pradesh of Southern India – A validation study

Abstract

Femur is the best choice for estimating stature of an individual. Robust mathematical equations were developed by many researchers  for estimating stature from total length of femur. Though these equations are readily available, they are population specific and  require an entire intact femur bone. In our present study we tried to address these two questions by trying to develop population  specific equations from fragmentary femur bones. The objective of the study is to find correlation between fragments of femur with  maximum length of femur and develop simple and multiple equations for estimating maximum length of femur from femur  fragments. The various segmental measurements of femur are selected as suggested by Steel and McKern. We studied 100 femur  bones of both sides as a part of validation study before initiating large scale research on a larger study sample. The results were  promising with positive correlations between fragments and total length of femur and the regression equations developed showed  statistical significance at p<0.05.