Computed tomographic age estimation from the pubic symphysis using the Suchey-Brooks method: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

Forensic age estimation is routinely applied in investigations involving identification of individuals. Over the past century a myriad of methods have been devised for age estimation. One such method, proposed by Suchey and Brooks in 1990, groups the observed changes occurring in the pubic symphysis into six phases, each defined by a corresponding age range. The present study was piloted with the focussed question being to empirically determine the accuracy of the Suchey-Brooks method in computed tomographic age estimation by analysing morphological changes occurring in the pubic symphysis. Original articles pertaining to the use of the Suchey-Brooks method for CT based age estimation were extracted from four different databases- PubMed, CENTRAL, Google Scholar and ScienceDirect. Research papers which were answering the focussed question were selected for data analysis. After assessing the risk of bias of the selected articles, the data was subjected to Meta-analysis. Pooled analysis of correctly/accurately aged individuals/remains using the random and fixed effect models yielded a prediction percentage of 78% and 86%, respectively. Higher percentages were obtained for phase-wise and subgroup analysis, indicating that the Suchey-Brooks method is a reliable method for age estimation.