Conclusion

Facial soft tissue thickness was measured from a computed tomography scan of the face in Nigerian adult females. Measurements were taken at 50 points, including 12 midlines and 19 bilateral (right and left) points. Preliminary facial soft tissue thickness data have now been created for the Nigerian female and young Hausa female adult subgroup, age 18 to 32 years. This preliminary FSTT dataset will suffice for forensic facial reconstruction for the Nigerian adult female. The Hausa female 18 to 32 years data will be more specific for a Hausa adult female if the defined age is within this range.

This study revealed that the left side of the face marginally has more soft tissue thickness than the right side. Similar to those of other populations, the soft tissue thickness of the Nigerian female were mostly less than the corresponding data for the Nigerian adult males This dataset, like the Nigerian male dataset, shows reproducible similarities and differences when compared with other populations, including South African females, Koreans, Belgians, Bulgarians, Brazilians, Greeks and Turkish adults. The biggest limitations of this study are the lack of a body mass index (or weight) classification and the limited number of subjects used. In future works, a larger sample will allow for stratification by weight and age ranges.