Appraisal of traditional and recently proposed relationships between the hard and soft dimensions of the nose in profile

This paper tests six methods of predicting external nasal profile proportions, using the form and dimensions of the bony nasal (piriform) aperture. A sample of 122 lateral cephalograms was measured and traced before each method was attempted, under blind conditions where appropriate. Error was assessed by comparing predicted to actual proportions. Methods used by the following authors were tested: Krogman and Iscan ([1986] The Human Skeleton in Forensic Medicine, Springfield: G.G. Thomas), Gerasimov ([1955] The Reconstruction of the Face on the Skull), Prokopec and Ubelaker ([2002] Forensic Sci. Commun. 4:1-4), Macho ([1986] J. Forensic Sci. 31:1391-1403), George ([1987] J. Forensic Sci. 32:1305-1330), and Stephan et al. ([2003] Am J. Phys. Anthropol. 122:240-250). The two-tangent method by Gerasimov ([1955] The Reconstruction of the Face on the Skull) was found to perform best at predicting a point on the nasal tip on male and female preoperative subjects. The method of Krogman and Iscan ([1986] The Human Skeleton in Forensic Medicine, Springfield: G.G. Thomas) performed poorly, as did the nasal profile determination method (Prokopec and Ubelaker [2002] Forensic Sci. Commun. 4:1-4). The other methods, all derived by a process of regression calculations, were shown to perform with variable accuracy on this sample, despite the age range and ethnicity of this sample closely resembling that of the samples from which these methods were derived.