A pilot- cross sectional study of palatal Rugae shape and direction among Egyptians and Malaysians

Abstract

Background: To evaluate the role of different morphological palatal rugae patterns (palatal print) as a tool for personal identification. Method: A pilot cross-sectional study was carried out on 60 Egyptian subjects and 60 Malaysian subjects. All were above 6 years old, nonsmokers and were sharing the same dietary habits. Palatal impressions were taken from the subjects and a rugogram was issued. Many parameters were included in the rugogram. Rugae shape, direction and unification pattern were the main parameters involved. Modified Trobo classification and Thomas & Kotz classification were used. Results: The present study revealed that lines, sinouses and curve shaped rugae were the most frequent rugae patterns among both Egyptians and Malaysians. Forward directed and divergent rugae were more frequent than backwardly directed and convergent rugae among both groups. No significant differences regarding rugae shape, direction and unification status among both sexes in each group were observed. Curve shaped rugae, sinous shaped rugae and complexly shaped rugae were significantly higher in the Malaysian males compared to Egyptian males. Malaysian females had a significant greater number of sinuous shaped rugae than the Egyptian females while the Egyptian females had a greater number of line-shaped rugae than the Malaysian females.Conclusions: This present pilot study revealed that Egyptians and Malaysians shared specific characteristic rugae patterns and direction. Sexual dimorphism was not evident among both populations regarding rugae shape, direction and unification status.

Sex Assessment by Morphological Analysis of Palatal Rugae Patterns in a South Indian Adult Population

“…This finding broadly supports the results of earlier reports. 4,6,7,[9][10][11][13][14][15]18,22 The current study found that only the number of circular rugae was significantly higher in females than males, similar to an earlier report. 7 However, the findings of our study do not support the results of previous studies.…”

“…A considerable amount of literature exists on diverse topics like genetic predisposition, 2 the prevalence of various morphological patterns, [4][5][6][7][8][9] and differences in PR's morphology concerning sex. 2,[10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17] To date, there has been little agreement on whether sex can be predicted with the help of PR patterns 11,18 and most of the studies recommended the use of PR along with other methods for the identification of sex. With this background, we aimed to use the morphological analysis of palatal rugae patterns to assess sex in a South Indian adult population.…”

The Heritability of Palatal Rugae Morphology Among Siblings*†

“…Besides, this study group had more divergent type of rugae than convergent rugae. This finding was similar to the unification pattern observed in Egyptians and Indians but in contrast with Sudanese, Libyans, Serbians, and Bengalis which were predominantly convergent (23,27–29,32,34). The unification pattern was not statistically different between the sibling groups in this study.…”

“…This study group showed more backward directed rugae compared to forward and perpendicular rugae which is similar to the Bengali population (28). In contrast, forward directed rugae was predominant in Sudanese, Egyptians, Turkish, Gujarati, and Indians (22,27,(29)(30)(31)(32)(33). Generally, the population worldwide would show more forward directed rugae because there is a decrease in backward directed rugae with age.…”

“…Meanwhile, Iranian and southeast, North, and West Indian males showed significantly more divergent rugae than their counterparts (35–37). Besides, the variation between findings of differrent studies is due to different classification used such as some studies classify unification as additional patterns (29).…”