title: Dermatoglyphs and brachial plexus palsy.
abstract: Perinatal brachial plexus palsy (PBPP) is a handicap quite commonly encountered in daily routine. Although birth trauma is considered to be the major cause of the defect, it has been observed that PBPP occurs only in some infants born under identical or nearly identical conditions. The aim of this study was to test the hypothesis of genetic predisposition for PBPP. It is well known that digito-palmar dermatoglyphs can be used to determine hereditary roots of some diseases. Thus, we found it meaningful to do a study analysis of digito-palmar dermatoglyphs in this disease as well, conducting it on 140 subjects (70 males and 70 females) diagnosed with PBPP. The control group was composed of fingerprints obtained from 400 adult and phenotypically healthy subjects (200 males and 200 females) from the Zagreb area. The results of multivariate and univariate analysis of variance have shown statistically significant differences between the groups observed. In spite of lower percentage of accurately classified female subjects by discriminant analysis, the results of quantitative analysis of digito-palmar dermatoglyphs appeared to suggest a genetic predisposition for the occurrence of PBPP.
authors.affiliation: Polyclinic for Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation M. Stojcević-Polovina, Zagreb, Croatia.
authors.forename: Svetislav
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Polovina
authors.forename: Miljenko
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Cvjeticanin
authors.forename: Jasna
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Milicić
authors.forename: Tajana Polovina
authors.initials: TP
authors.lastname: Proloscić
mesh_terms: D000704:Analysis of Variance; D020516:Brachial Plexus Neuropathies / Q000235:genetics*; D016022:Case-Control Studies; D003878:Dermatoglyphics; D005260:Female; D020022:Genetic Predisposition to Disease / Q000235:genetics*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male