Statistical Interpretation in Making DNA-based Identifications of Mass Victims.

Shin, Kyoung Jin; Lee, Hwan Young; Yang, Woo Ick; Ha, Eunho

Review article

Korean Journal of Legal Medicine 2008;32(1):55-60.
Published online May 31, 2008.

Statistical Interpretation in Making DNA-based Identifications of Mass Victims.

Kyoung Jin Shin, Hwan Young Lee, Woo Ick Yang, Eunho Ha

¹Department of Forensic Medicine, Yonsei University College of Medicine, Seoul, Korea.
²Department of Information and Statistics, Yonsei University at Wonju-si, Gangwon-do, Korea. statha@yonsei.ac.kr

Abstract

DNA profiles have been increasingly used as the most reliable means to identify remains from war or mass disaster. To establish the identity with such a large set of victims, special care should be taken to correlate remains with correct family references while avoiding coincidental match between non-relatives. Therefore we address here relevant statistical and combinatorial issues in the DNA identification of mass victims. A simple and general formula for the likelihood ratio governing any potential kinship between two DNA profiles was presented, and for that purpose, the probabilities that a given relative and an individual share autosomal identical-bydescent alleles were calculated. In addition, a method dealing with the allele drop-out in kinship analysis and the estimation of a cold hit were discussed.

Key Words: mass victims, kinship, relatives, probability, likelihood, allele drop-out, cold hit