Morphology of the human pinna in Anioma, Urhobo and Isoko populations of Delta State

Abstract

Introduction: A structure that its variation is often overlooked is the ear pinna. This study was aimed at establishing norms for anatomic variation in pinna morphology among the Anioma, Urhobo and Isoko populations of Delta State.

Methodology: Character types of morphological features of the pinna were ticked out in a structured data sheet from observations made from photographs of 630 ears (right and left) obtained from 174 male and 141 female subjects of the three groups. The entire cohort comprised of 104, 114 and 97 subjects from Anioma, Urhobo and Isoko respectively.

Results: From the analysis of variation in appearance, this study revealed that most character types of the pinna were evenly distributed in the three studied groups. Although majority of the characters from the results of a chi-squared test performed, showed significant difference (P<0.05) in the incidence of occurrence of each character type of pinna minutae between groups. No significant difference was noted between left and right pinna (P>0.05). The study revealed that morphology of the pinna is not solely independent of gender noting a significant difference in occurrence in only the character types of tragus, pinna lobule and cranial surface of the pinna between gender group (P<0.01).

Conclusion: As subtle as the pinna morphology may seem, this study has established norms for variation in anatomic features of the human pinna in these Delta State groups.

Keywords: Morphology, Pinna, Variation, Anioma, Urhobo, Isoko