This was a cadaveric dissection study involving 34 human adult cadavers of indigenous Kenyan descent carried out at the Department of Human Anatomy, University of Nairobi. Majority of these cadavers are unclaimed bodies in the city of Nairobi, whose demographics are hardly known. Approval to conduct the study was obtained from the Kenyatta National Hospital/University of Nairobi Ethics, Research and Standards Committee (P694/11/2014).

The procedure involved exposure of the lingual and facial arteries, beginning from the external carotid artery and following them to determine which one of them ended as the sublingual artery. This was followed by bilateral resection of the mandible at the position of the lateral incisors.

The bucco-lingual thickness of the mandible at the level of the MMLF and the distance from the inferior border of the mandible to the MMLF were measured. All photographs were taken using a HTC digital camera (Xindian, Taiwan) with dual 4 MP, 2688 × 1520 pixels and dual-LED flash. Morphometric measurements were taken with a Pittsburgh 6-in. digital calliper (Pittsburgh, China).

Data collected were analysed using SPSS version 17 (SPSS Inc., Chicago, IL) statistical software. Probabilities that were ≤0.05 were accepted as significant. Descriptive parameters were expressed as minimum, maximum and mean ± standard deviation. The statistical significance of gender differences was determined using the Mann-Whitney U test.