Assessment of cheiloscopic pattern in subjects with clinically obvious facial asymmetry

Abstract

Bilateral facial symmetry is rare, however clinically obvious facial asymmetry is of concern. Facial asymmetry results not only in functional, but also esthetic issues. Asymmetries could have pathological, traumatic, functional or develop­mental causal factors. Lip prints are unique to an individual just like the fingerprints and shows strong hereditary pattern and are useful in forensic science for identification in mass disaster, sex determination and criminal cases etc. Though facial asymmetry is generally evaluated using facial photograph or PA ceph but it was decided to see if there is variation in chieloscopic pattern in subjects with facial asymmetry. Considering this, it was decided to compare cheiloscopic pattern between subjects with clinically obvious facial asymmetry to normal subjects with no clinically obvious facial asymmetry.Cheiloscopic pattern of 30 subjects were equally divided in 2 groups based on clinical examination-GROUP 1(normal with no facial asyemmtry) GROUP II (subjects with obvious facial asymmetry) and their cheiloscopic pattern was recorded using photo paper and lipstick. Groove pattern of lip print was assessed as per Tsuchihashi classification-Type I-Complete vertical grooves, Type I’-partial vertical grooves, Type II-forked grooves, Type III-intersected grooves, Type IV-reticular, Type V-undetermined. The assessment was done in 3 zones each (C-centre, R-right, L-left).Adequate statistical comparison were made.For right zone, Type I’ was most common, both for Group I (40%) and Group II (46.7%). In centre zone, Type I was most common (46.7%) followed by Type II for group I, Type II was most common (40%) followed by Type I(33.3%)for Group II. On left side, Type I and I’ are most common(26%) followed by Type II(20%) for Group I and Type I’ (46.6%) is most common followed by Type I and Type II for Group II. There was no statistical significant difference between the type of lip pattern for two groups in each zone (C,R.L).Within the limitation of the study done on smaller sample size it can be stated that chieloscopic pattern did not show variation with facial asymmetry.