Patterns of Lip Print and Fingerprint in Gender Identification: A Cross-sectional Study

Abstract

Background: Personal identification is one of the key areas in the forensic sciences. A combination of different simple and easily available methods such as lip prints and fingerprints can be used for human identification. Our objective was to analyze the types of lip print and fingerprint patterns in dental students and to identify if they were associated with gender.
 Methods: This was a cross-sectional comparative study conducted in 150 students (male: female 1:1), aged between 17 to 34 years, from Kantipur Dental College. The lip print and fingerprint patterns were recorded and interpreted based on the Tsuchihashi and Michael Kucken classification respectively.
 Results: The most common lip print pattern was intersected type (44, 29.3%), while the least common was undetermined type (7, 4.7%). The intersected lip pattern (23, 30.7%) was most prevalent in males and the vertical pattern (28, 37.3%) was most prevalent in females (p < 0.05). The loop-type (82, 54.7%) fingerprint pattern was the most common while the arch-type (19, 12.7%) was the least common. The most common fingerprint pattern in both sexes was loop pattern (38, 50.7%).
 Conclusions: The type of lip print pattern holds potential promise as a supplementary tool for gender identification. However, fingerprint pattern was not associated with gender.

Gender Specific Correlation between Lip Print, Fingerprint and Blood Groups among Adults aged 20-30 Years attending a Tertiary Health Care Centre

“…32,35 Present study revealed that the females showed the arch (55%) type of fingerprints as the most common one that was against finding of earlier study. 39 The whorl type of fingerprint was found more in male (35%) compared to female (15%) that corroborates with the earlier study. 31,35 Current study revealed a statistically significant association between gender and fingerprint (p-value<0.001) and between gender and lip print (p-value 0.001) but none with blood groups.…”

“…25 A study conducted in BPKHIS Dharan found a most prevalent (37.3%) vertical pattern of lip print in females while the intersected lip pattern was most prevalent in males. 39 In another study, it was recorded that type I and type I' were the most dominant pattern in both male and female population. 13,15 A great degree of inconsistency in the observation of lip print patterns and statistically significant difference with the different lip print patterns analyzed in males and females has also been observed by earlier researchers.…”

“…The findings partially agreed with the findings of earlier researches where a higher distribution of loop type fingerprints was recorded in both male and females. 31,39 Earlier research found a higher distribution of loop pattern followed by whorl and arch type of fingerprints. 2,14 The finding was consistent with the universal observation 2 .…”

“…The interpretation of loop, whorl, arch and composite type dactyloscopic impression was done according to Michael and Kucken classification. 14,[31][32][33][34]39 Blood group: The blood group was asked to patients and recorded at the time of collection of lip and thumb impression along with other records.…”