Retrospective Study
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2024. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Radiol. Dec 28, 2024; 16(12): 760-770
Published online Dec 28, 2024. doi: 10.4329/wjr.v16.i12.760
Auricular dimensions in computed-tomography: Unveiling the relationship between ear dimensions, age, and sex using three-dimensional volume rendering reconstructions
Bastian Schulz, Michael Thali, Rahel Kubik-Huch, Tilo Niemann
Bastian Schulz, Rahel Kubik-Huch, Tilo Niemann, Department of Radiology, Kantonsspital Baden, The Affiliated Hospital for Research and Teaching of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Zurich, Baden, Switzerland
Bastian Schulz, Michael Thali, Department of Forensic Medicine Zurich, Institution of Forensic Medicine and Imaging, University of Zurich, Zurich 8057, Zürich, Switzerland
Author contributions: Schulz B, Thali M, Kubik-Huch R and Niemann T contributed to the study conception and design; material preparation, data collection and analysis were performed by Schulz B under the supervision of Niemann T; the first draft of the manuscript was written by Schulz B and Thali M, Kubik-Huch R and Niemann T commented on previous versions of the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.
Supported by Schulz B received funding from Guerbet AG, No. 8050.
Institutional review board statement: The questionnaire and methodology for this retrospective study were approved by the local Institutional Ethics Committee Ethikkomission Nordwest- und Zentralschweiz (February 24, 2023, BASEC-Nr. 2023-00260).
Informed consent statement: This retrospective study was performed in line with the principles of the Declaration of Helsinki and under the legal guidelines of the “Bundesgesetz über die Forschung am Menschen (Humanforschungsgesetz, HFG). Ac-cordingly, every patient at our clinic was provided with informed consent. Rejection of informed consent automatically led to exclusion from our study.
Conflict-of-interest statement: Schulz B received funding from Guerbet AG (8050 Zurich, Switzerland). The other authors have no relevant financial or non-financial interests to disclose.
Data sharing statement: The datasets used and/or analyzed in the current study are available from the corresponding author upon rea-sonable request.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Tilo Niemann, MD, Professor, Kantonsspital Baden AG, Department of Radiology, Kantonsspital Baden, The Affiliated Hospital for Research and Teaching of the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Zurich, Im Ergel 1, Baden 5404, Aargau, Switzerland. tilo.niemann@ksb.ch
Received: June 12, 2024
Revised: October 21, 2024
Accepted: November 22, 2024
Published online: December 28, 2024
Processing time: 197 Days and 18 Hours
Core Tip

Core Tip: This study utilized computed tomography volumetric datasets to investigate human auricular morphology across a diverse age range (18 to 97 years) in 671 subjects (342 females, 329 males). Our findings reveal significant positive correlations between auricular dimensions and age, with ear perimeter showing the strongest correlation (r-value: 0.47-0.53) in both sexes. Notably, the emergence of preauricular vertical lines was observed at a mean age of 66.65 years for males and 70.18 years for females. Overall, the study results provide insights that could impact clinical practices, enhance research methodologies, advance facial recognition technology, improve forensic identification, and inform surgical approaches.