Morphological Pattern of Palatal Rugae in Children of Davangere

Abstract

The aim of this study was to identify and compare the rugae pattern between males and females of two different communities in the city of Davangere, Karnataka, India, which may be an additional method of identification in cases of crimes or communal riots. Elastomeric impressions of the maxillary arch of 100 selected children were made; casts were poured in Type IV stone. The method of identification of rugae pattern followed was that of Lysell and Thomas and Kotze, which includes the number, shape, direction, and unification of rugae. The study revealed no significant difference in the total number or length of rugae between the two communities and sexes. However, with regard to shape and unification, females showed a significantly higher diverging rugae type while males had a significant number of circular and converging type of rugae. Also, discrimination function analysis allowed a moderate differentiation of the population. Hence, the rugae pattern can be an additional method of differentiation in conjunction with the other methods such as visual, fingerprints, and dental characteristics in forensic sciences.

Patterns of palatal rugae as an indicator of identification in young adults of Nepal

“…The predominant direction of the palatal rugae was forward directed compared to backward which were more in females as consistent with the study by Gondivkar et al 1 Similarly the backward directed pattern were more among females though statistically not significant. Another finding in our study wherein converging pattern was more in females is in concordance with the study by Fahmi et al 27 in Saudi population, but contrary to the study in Indian population. 29 Even though according to Ohtani et al, 30 three situations complicate identification based on the palatal rugae viz.…”

“…10 Similar observations were also reported in the study on Nepalese and Indian population. 24,27 The second most common pattern was curved which was in consistent to study by Bajracharya et al 24 but in contrast to the findings by Kallianpur et al 28 who reported straight type as second predominant pattern in Nepalese population. The predominant direction of the palatal rugae was forward directed compared to backward which were more in females as consistent with the study by Gondivkar et al 1 Similarly the backward directed pattern were more among females though statistically not significant.…”

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

“…The significant racial differences among Egyptian and Malaysian males as regards to rugae direction in this study are different from Jibi et al, (2011) who reported non-significant differences between Muslims and Hindus regarding rugae direction.…”

“…However, they mentioned that Sudanese males had significantly greater forwarding directed rugae than the Sudanese females. Gondivkar et al, (2011) & Jibi et al, (2011 noticed that forwarding directed rugae were more frequent than backward directed rugae and no significant differences were observed between Indian males and females regarding rugae direction.…”

“…Saraf et al, (2011) observed that converging rugae were significantly greater in females (2 as a median value) than males of the same nationality (zero as a median value). Additionally, Bharath et al, (2011), Jibi et al, (2011) & Babu et al, (2013 conducted their study in India and concluded that males had significantly more convergent rugae than the females that showed a higher incidence of divergent rugae than the males. Chopra et al, (2013) reported that Indian females exhibited significantly greater divergent rugae count than the Indian males.…”