Variability and specificity regarding the facial soft tissue thickness for romanian adults

Forensic identification is a subdomain of forensic medicine that is becoming more and more important every day. Cranio-facial reconstruction is one of the methods that can be used for a positive identification, especially when the other lines of evidence do not offer many certainties. In order to perform a cranio-facial reconstruction as reliable as possible, and for the reconstructed image to have the most consistent characteristics, it is necessary to create as many databases as possible regarding the thickness of the facial soft tissues, specific to the population. The aim of the present paper is to create a database of soft tissue thicknesses values for Romanian adult population. As material and method, the authors perform measurements of 11 craniometric landmarks on 100 computed tomography images of Romanian adults. Also, the authors perform a comparative analysis with other European population, including the Turkish population which is also a Balkan country. The results of the study show statistically significant differences between the values of the thickness of the facial soft tissues of the adult population of Romania and those of France, Czech Republic, Slovakia and Turkey respectively. We consider that the values of the facial soft tissues thickness obtained in this study can be considered as the starting point for a database, to be used in cranio-facial reconstruction process for Romanian adults in forensic cases as well as a beginning for other research studies.