AIMS AND OBJECTIVES:This study aimed at determining the normal anthropometric measurements of external ear in males and females and their comparison on either sides and in either sex. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The study was carried out on 147 medical students of BRIMS, Bidar Karnataka with no evidence of congenital ear anomalies or previous ear surgeries. The study cohort consisted of 70 females and 77 males aged 18-25years. Vernier Calipers were used to measure the bilateral sizes of auricles. Parameters were total ear height, ear width, lobular height and lobular width. OBSERVATIONS AND RESULTS: It was observed that all parameters were significantly larger on right side in both males and females which was statistically significant. All measurements were found higher in males than in females on both sides, total ear height and ear width were found to be significantly greater. CONCLUSION: These findings suggest that the normal anthropometric study will have implications in the cosmetic surgeries, correction of malformations, designing of head phones, ear phones and hearing aids. KEYWORDS: Anthropometry, Morphometry, Ear Lobule, Auricle, Vernier Calipers.
INTRODUCTION:Anthropometry refers to the measurements of living human body dimensions for the purpose of understanding human physical variation as it plays an important role in plastic surgery, prosthetics and so on for data collection. 1 The human ear is divided into external, middle and internal parts. Pinna and external acoustic meatus form the external ear. The external ear is composed of three primary components: the helix-ant helical complex, the conchal complex, and the lobe. 2 The shape, size and orientation of each external ear is unique as fingerprint but it is plausible to make some conclusion; males have larger ears than their female's counterpart. 3 Ears increase in both length and width with increase in age, 4 from birth to 99 years of age. The increment was continuous in females, but for males it stopped around age of 50 and 70 for ear width and length, respectively.The mean values of different age groups such as 4-5 (34.16mm), 15-17 (35.74mm), 18-30 (34.51mm) and 31-40 (35.72mm) for auricular width and 4-5 (50.30mm), 15-17 (60.26), 18-30 (56.11) and 31-40 (58.43) for auricular length were documented. 5 There is always need for anthropometric data for a given population especially for the need of identification as well as designing products suitable for utility by the population. The ear dimension is one of such variables whose information is vital for ear reconstruction, ear related instruments among others. The present study aimed at determining the normal anthropometric measurements of external ear in males and females and their comparison on either sides and in either sex as no such study has been conducted so far in this institute.