Forensic implications of histological analysis of human femur and tibia bones exhumed from a Niger-Deltan soil

The present study aims to investigate the histological analysis of human femoral and tibial bone fragments exhumed from a sampled Niger Delta soil. Femur and tibia bones were extracted from preserved human cadavers in the gross anatomy laboratory and buried about 10cm deep in sampled Niger Delta (Rivers) soil sample for a period of nine months. Control (unburied) groups for each bone type were used for comparison. Later, the bones were exhumed and processed histologically and Image J software was used to analyze the histo-architecture of the bones using histomorphometric measurements such as haversian canal area (HCA) and haversian canal diameter (HCD). From the present study results, there was no statistically significant difference in femur HCA between control and buried groups (p > 0.05). However, there was a statistically significant difference in tibia HCA between control and buried groups (p < 0.05). The application of both femoral HCA and HCD using a regression model was significantly in predicting the effect of soil burial on femur bones. The study concluded that soil burial significantly impacted the histological architecture of tibia bones as differences in both HCA and HCD were observed in exhumed tibia bones.