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Authors are the souls of any journal, and deserve much respect. To publish a journal manuscripts are needed from authors. Authors have a great responsibility for producing facts of their work in terms of number and results truthfully and an individual honesty is expected from authors in this regards. Both ways its true "No authors-No manuscripts-No journals" and "No journals–No manuscripts–No authors". Reviewing a manuscript is also a very responsible and important task of any peer-reviewed journal and to be taken seriously. It needs knowledge on the subject, sincerity, honesty and determination. Although the process of reviewing a manuscript is a time consuming task butit is expected to give one's best remarks within the time frame of the journal.
Salient features of the JCDR: It is a biomedical, multidisciplinary (including all medical and dental specialities), e-journal, with wide scope and extensive author support. At the same time, a free text of manuscript is available in HTML and PDF format. There is fast growing authorship and readership with JCDR as this can be judged by the number of articles published in it i e; in Feb 2007 of its first issue, it contained 5 articles only, and now in its recent volume published in April 2011, it contained 67 manuscripts. This e-journal is fulfilling the commitments and objectives sincerely, (as stated by Editor-in-chief in his preface to first edition) i e; to encourage physicians through the internet, especially from the developing countries who witness a spectrum of disease and acquire a wealth of knowledge to publish their experiences to benefit the medical community in patients care. I also feel that many of us have work of substance, newer ideas, adequate clinical materials but poor in medical writing and hesitation to submit the work and need help. JCDR provides authors help in this regards.
Timely publication of journal: Publication of manuscripts and bringing out the issue in time is one of the positive aspects of JCDR and is possible with strong support team in terms of peer reviewers, proof reading, language check, computer operators, etc. This is one of the great reasons for authors to submit their work with JCDR. Another best part of JCDR is "Online first Publications" facilities available for the authors. This facility not only provides the prompt publications of the manuscripts but at the same time also early availability of the manuscripts for the readers.
Indexation and online availability: Indexation transforms the journal in some sense from its local ownership to the worldwide professional community and to the public.JCDR is indexed with Embase & EMbiology, Google Scholar, Index Copernicus, Chemical Abstracts Service, Journal seek Database, Indian Science Abstracts, to name few of them. Manuscriptspublished in JCDR are available on major search engines ie; google, yahoo, msn.
In the era of fast growing newer technologies, and in computer and internet friendly environment the manuscripts preparation, submission, review, revision, etc and all can be done and checked with a click from all corer of the world, at any time. Of course there is always a scope for improvement in every field and none is perfect. To progress, one needs to identify the areas of one's weakness and to strengthen them.
It is well said that "happy beginning is half done" and it fits perfectly with JCDR. It has grown considerably and I feel it has already grown up from its infancy to adolescence, achieving the status of standard online e-journal form Indian continent since its inception in Feb 2007. This had been made possible due to the efforts and the hard work put in it. The way the JCDR is improving with every new volume, with good quality original manuscripts, makes it a quality journal for readers. I must thank and congratulate Dr Hemant Jain, Editor-in-Chief JCDR and his team for their sincere efforts, dedication, and determination for making JCDR a fast growing journal.
Every one of us: authors, reviewers, editors, and publisher are responsible for enhancing the stature of the journal. I wish for a great success for JCDR."
Thanking you
With sincere regards
Dr. Rajendra Kumar Ghritlaharey, M.S., M. Ch., FAIS
Associate Professor,
Department of Paediatric Surgery, Gandhi Medical College & Associated
Kamla Nehru & Hamidia Hospitals Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh 462 001 (India)
E-mail: drrajendrak1@rediffmail.com
On May 11,2011
Dr. Shankar P.R.
"On looking back through my Gmail archives after being requested by the journal to write a short editorial about my experiences of publishing with the Journal of Clinical and Diagnostic Research (JCDR), I came across an e-mail from Dr. Hemant Jain, Editor, in March 2007, which introduced the new electronic journal. The main features of the journal which were outlined in the e-mail were extensive author support, cash rewards, the peer review process, and other salient features of the journal.
Over a span of over four years, we (I and my colleagues) have published around 25 articles in the journal. In this editorial, I plan to briefly discuss my experiences of publishing with JCDR and the strengths of the journal and to finally address the areas for improvement.
My experiences of publishing with JCDR: Overall, my experiences of publishing withJCDR have been positive. The best point about the journal is that it responds to queries from the author. This may seem to be simple and not too much to ask for, but unfortunately, many journals in the subcontinent and from many developing countries do not respond or they respond with a long delay to the queries from the authors 1. The reasons could be many, including lack of optimal secretarial and other support. Another problem with many journals is the slowness of the review process. Editorial processing and peer review can take anywhere between a year to two years with some journals. Also, some journals do not keep the contributors informed about the progress of the review process. Due to the long review process, the articles can lose their relevance and topicality. A major benefit with JCDR is the timeliness and promptness of its response. In Dr Jain's e-mail which was sent to me in 2007, before the introduction of the Pre-publishing system, he had stated that he had received my submission and that he would get back to me within seven days and he did!
Most of the manuscripts are published within 3 to 4 months of their submission if they are found to be suitable after the review process. JCDR is published bimonthly and the accepted articles were usually published in the next issue. Recently, due to the increased volume of the submissions, the review process has become slower and it ?? Section can take from 4 to 6 months for the articles to be reviewed. The journal has an extensive author support system and it has recently introduced a paid expedited review process. The journal also mentions the average time for processing the manuscript under different submission systems - regular submission and expedited review.
Strengths of the journal: The journal has an online first facility in which the accepted manuscripts may be published on the website before being included in a regular issue of the journal. This cuts down the time between their acceptance and the publication. The journal is indexed in many databases, though not in PubMed. The editorial board should now take steps to index the journal in PubMed. The journal has a system of notifying readers through e-mail when a new issue is released. Also, the articles are available in both the HTML and the PDF formats. I especially like the new and colorful page format of the journal. Also, the access statistics of the articles are available. The prepublication and the manuscript tracking system are also helpful for the authors.
Areas for improvement: In certain cases, I felt that the peer review process of the manuscripts was not up to international standards and that it should be strengthened. Also, the number of manuscripts in an issue is high and it may be difficult for readers to go through all of them. The journal can consider tightening of the peer review process and increasing the quality standards for the acceptance of the manuscripts. I faced occasional problems with the online manuscript submission (Pre-publishing) system, which have to be addressed.
Overall, the publishing process with JCDR has been smooth, quick and relatively hassle free and I can recommend other authors to consider the journal as an outlet for their work."
Dr. P. Ravi Shankar
KIST Medical College, P.O. Box 14142, Kathmandu, Nepal.
E-mail: ravi.dr.shankar@gmail.com
On April 2011 Anuradha
Dear team JCDR, I would like to thank you for the very professional and polite service provided by everyone at JCDR. While i have been in the field of writing and editing for sometime, this has been my first attempt in publishing a scientific paper.Thank you for hand-holding me through the process.
Dr. Anuradha
E-mail: anuradha2nittur@gmail.com
On Jan 2020
Original article / research
Full Version
Morphometric Sex Identification Based on Paranasal Sinus Dimensions in the Indian Population: A CBCT Based Study
Correspondence Address :
Dr. Jijin Mekkadath Jayakrishnan,
PhD Scholar, Department of Oral Medicine and Radiology, Sri Balaji Vidyapeeth University, Puducherry, India.
E-mail: drjijin@gmail.com
Introduction: The creation of technologies using anatomical components like the maxillary sinus and frontal sinus that might preserve their stability yet after extreme events, are helpful for forensic investigations because sex determination is a crucial component of determining the profile of an individual.
Aim: To determine the sex using Cone Beam Computed Tomography (CBCT) scans, in a South Indian community by measuring the frontal and maxillary sinuses.
Materials and Methods: The present cross-sectional study was conducted in the Department of Oral Medicine and Radiology, Sri Balaji Vidyapeeth University, IGIDS, Puducherry, India, from 1st March 2021 to 31st March 2022. Analysis included 45 CBCT scans from 22 males and 23 females were subjected to volumetric measures in the maxillary sinus and frontal sinus. Applying NNT software, the volume measurement was carried out. The data was used to feed into a sex identification mathematical model. For evaluation, the student’s t-test has been used.
Results: In the total study subjects, the mean age of males was 36.909 years and of females was 36.304 years. Only the volume of the frontal sinus varied significantly among males and females (p-value <0.001). The discriminant function analysis equation showed that 50% of males and 91.3% of females correctly identified their gender. According to the cross-validated categorisation, 71.1% of the people were accurately categorised altogether.
Conclusion: Segregation identification, which was validated with evaluations in the frontal and maxillary sinuses with CBCT scans, is another technique for identifying individuals who identify as Indian. The present study shows that paranasal sinus morphologic evaluation is a useful method for identifying a person’s gender.
Cone beam computed tomography, Forensic anthropology, Forensic dentistry, Frontal sinus, Maxillary sinus
Forensic odontology has evolved alongside technological and data capture approaches throughout the growth of civilisation (1). Forensic odontology has gained recognition as a crucial discipline in medicolegal cases and the authentication of the deceased over time. In order to evaluate and examine injuries to the jaws, oral tissues, and teeth brought on by a variety of events, to recognise or rule out a suspect as a predator by examining bite marks, and eventually to examine fragments or complete dental remains in order to potentially identify an individual particularly in situations involving large-scale disasters, forensic odontology expertise is being used (2).
The skull can be the sole section of the skeleton that is still accessible for forensic analysis because it is the portion of the human body that is most frequently preserved after life. The amount of criminal cases has increased recently, particularly those involving murder and body burning. In cases where facial features are fully distorted, then identification of the deceased possesses a challenge to the forensic experts. In such cases, the identification is established based on possible age, gender, race, stature, any injury marks, certain distinctive features including polydactyly, callus of old fracture or the presence of an extra rib. Even though these features are useful in identifying a deceased, they may not be completely successful in identification based on a human skull (3).
Determining a person’s gender is vital in medicolegal proceedings, particularly when the body is fractured and degraded, as in natural calamities, large-scale tragedies, or crime scenes. Some of the bodily parts utilised in sexual identity include the skull, pelvis, long bones, foramen magnum, sella turcica, mandibular ramus and paranasal sinuses. Unfortunately, it can be difficult to determine the gender of these bones because they are frequently found either fractured or fragmentary. Because they are frequently retrieved whole, denser bones like the maxilla can be used (4).
Males and females in diverse populations have varied maxillary sinuses in terms of shape and dimensions, according to evidence from numerous research [4-6]. When teeth are lost in maturity, the maxillary sinus may grow or shrink in size. Also, all genders experience a decrease in maxillary sinus size following the peak of their development because of the depletion of nutrients in the bone (4). The frontal sinus is yet another craniometric characteristic of significance in forensic identification owing to its uneven form (7). A study examining the relationship between the frontal sinus and gender found that females have smaller frontal sinuses than males (8). In forensic odontology, radiography has been employed, particularly when the body is charred, degraded, or shattered (9). Radiographic examinations are frequently used to determine age, gender, the location of gunshots and the wound tracks they left behind, and to evaluate the fragmentary remnants of the skull as well as other body parts. Computed Tomography (CT), which can show anatomical structures in three dimensions, has proven use in less invasive postmortem procedures like virtopsies [10,11]. The imaging technique of the next generation, CBCT, has a number of functional and technological advantages over traditional CT. CBCT images have less metallic artefacts than CT images. Moreover, CBCT image reconstruction is quicker and reduces radiation exposure by 96% compared to traditional CT (12). CBCT has been shown to be useful in determining gender using a variety of anatomical features in numerous investigations (13),(14),(15).
In the current study authors identified gender, based on measures of the frontal and maxillary sinuses taken using CBCT images. This study’s main aim was to identify the sex using paranasal sinus measures from CBCT pictures. Before proceeding with the volumetric analysis of the paranasal sinuses using New Net Technologies (NNT) software, authors did the present pilot study to determine the feasibility of the study.
The present cross-sectional study was conducted in the Department of Oral Medicine and Radiology, Sri Balaji Vidyapeeth University, IGIDS, Puducherry, India, from 1st March, 2021 to 31st March 2022. This research examined CBCT scans of 45 patients gathered from all over India. The ethical approval was obtained from Institutional Ethical Committee (IECSHST-03/MDC/2020). A convenient sample of 45 patients was considered. Images from different centres were procured. This study included a mixed cohort of North and south Indian population.
Inclusion criteria: CBCT scans of people above the age of 18 years, who were recommended for a head and neck CBCT examination, with both the maxillary and frontal sinuses fully visible in the pictures were included in the study.
Exclusion criteria: CBCT images having deformed or artifactual images, scans showing symptoms of sinus diseases and imaging with surgical defects were excluded from the study.
Study Procedure
The scan settings for the images (axial and coronal images) were 90 kV (peak), 6 mAs, and matrix size of 16#18 fov on a Newton Machine CBCT scanner with New Net Technologies (NNT) software. The homogeneity of all the characteristics related to CBCT scanning was maintained while choosing the CBCT images for the investigation. Based on the predetermined selection and exclusion criteria, a radiologist with expertise in CBCT image analysis chose the research images.
All study participants had their frontal sinuses and right and left maxilla volumetric measurements obtained. Radiologists with past knowledge analysing CBCT pictures and education in the NMT programme carried out all of the assessments (Table/Fig 1),(Table/Fig 2).
Statsitical Analysis
The obtained data were presented using descriptive analysis using the mean, standard deviation, and percentage values. The student’s t-test was used to compare the two groups based on sex, with a p-value of 0.05 being considered significant. The next step was doing a discriminant functional analysis to determine the sex 2according to the findings of measures of the frontal and maxillary sinus dimensions. SPSS software version 15.0 was used for the data analysis.
Out of total 45 participants enrolled in the trial, 23 were females and 22 were males with a mean age of 36.909 years and 36.304 years in males and females, respectively. The mean, standard deviation, and p-value of each predictor value for both men and women are shown in (Table/Fig 3). The volume of the frontal sinus differed significantly between boys and females based on the student’s t-test (p-value <0.001) (Table/Fig 3).
Discriminant function was calculated using the formula, Discriminant function=-1.289-0.021 (Maxillary sinus)+0.473 (Frontal sinus). A cut-off value of 0.025 was obtained for the formula used. The score above the cut-off was to be classified as males and below the cut-off as females.
Based on discriminant function analysis, gender assessment was achieved accurately in 50% males and 91.3% females. The overall classification accuracy was 71.1%, according to the cross-validated classification (Table/Fig 4).
Sexual dimorphism is an important part of forensic sciences for the accurate identification of the deceased individual. Evidence from literature has reported the anatomic variations of maxillary sinus among males and females (16),(17). The maxillary sinus dimensions among males and females in the current study differed significantly. According to a study by Kim HJ et al., using 33 hemisectioned reconstructed CT images of the maxillary sinus in the Korean population, men had a larger maxillary sinus than women do in terms of anteroposterior length, height, width and volume of the sinus (18). In a similar manner, Tambawala SS et al., study revealed that males had considerably higher maxillary sinus total values than females did, with the strongest indicators of sexual dimorphism having right height (90.0%) and left height (83.3%) (17).
The frontal sinus, which is particular to every person, is another significant paranasal sinus that is examined for sexual dimorphism. In investigation process, the frontal sinus is considered because it is a constant anatomical site across human existence (15). The frontal sinus also has an arched morphometry and an internal skeletal structure, which accounts for its full preservation in skeletal bones (19),(20).
In the present investigation, males frontal sinuses were noticeably bigger than females. The present study findings are consistent with those made public by Soman BA et al., and Shireen A et al., (21),(22). In contrast to what was shown in the investigation, Soman BA et al., study found a substantial difference seen between genders, with males having larger frontal sinuses than females (21). Shireen A et al., study found that the Saudi population’s morphology varied significantly by age and gender (22). The majority of investigations on sexual dimorphism have been carried out utilising CT scan images and regular plain images, despite the fact that the majority of previous research have found higher frontal and maxillary sinus measurements in males. The present work was unique, since authors used CBCT pictures to ensure a 1:1 depiction of the images with no amplification and less metallic artefacts.
Limitation(s)
The limited sample size of this study is one of its weaknesses, which highlights the need to carry out these studies on a wider population. Secondly, authors used CBCT scans for assessing gender and CBCT machines are available only in major cities of India and hence there is limited access to the general population. Further, there might be interpopulation variations affecting morphological features of the sinuses. As a result, the results need to be read carefully. The findings of the present investigation demonstrate the reliability and precision of employing a limited set of morphological traits to identify unknown skeletal remains and to ascertain the sex.
The paranasal sinus morphologic evaluation is a useful method for identifying a person’s gender. An excellent way to image the maxillofacial areas is with CBCT. Authors conclude that gender dimorphism can be detected using the maxillary and frontal sinus dimensions from the findings of the current investigation.
DOI: 10.7860/JCDR/2023/61745.18023
Date of Submission: Nov 22, 2022
Date of Peer Review: Dec 28, 2022
Date of Acceptance: Mar 14, 2023
Date of Publishing: Jun 01, 2023
AUTHOR DECLARATION:
• Financial or Other Competing Interests: None
• Was Ethics Committee Approval obtained for this study? Yes
• Was informed consent obtained from the subjects involved in the study? Yes
• For any images presented appropriate consent has been obtained from the subjects. Yes
PLAGIARISM CHECKING METHODS:
• Plagiarism X-checker: Nov 25, 2022
• Manual Googling: Mar 10, 2023
• iThenticate Software: Mar 13, 2023 (2%)
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