Assessment of lip print patterns and its use for personal identification among the populations of Rajnandgaon, Chhattisgarh, India.
BACKGROUND
Personal identification plays an inevitable role in forensic investigation. Lip print is one of the evidences that can be left in the crime scene, which helps in identification purpose. Hence, the present study was undertaken to provide deeper inside view of use of cheiloscopy in personal identification, focusing on sex and age variability of lip print patterns in the population of Rajnandgaon city, Chhattisgarh, India.


METHODS
The cross-sectional study was conducted among 200 (100 males and 100 females) subjects of age 15-55 years, residing in different areas of Rajnandgaon city. The sex of the individual was determined as per the description given by Vahanwala et al. Frequency distribution and Chi-square test were used for data analysis by SPSS 16.0 V software.


RESULTS
The most common lip print pattern in entire population was Type I (27.5%). Very highly significant difference was found in the distribution of lip print patterns among males and females in the entire population, group I, and group III, respectively (P < 0.0001). The overall accuracy of cheiloscopy in sex determination was (high) 87.95%, 87.65%, 90.5%, and 80% in group 1, 2, 3, and 4, respectively.


CONCLUSIONS
Thus, it can be concluded that lip prints can be used as one of the important forensic tools for personal identification on the basis of their age and gender variability among the populations.
Department of Public Health Dentistry, Chhattisgarh Dental College and Research Institute, Chhattisgarh, India.
Suraj
S
Multani
Department of Periodontology, Chhattisgarh Dental College and Research Institute, Chhattisgarh, India.
Vivek
V
Thombre
Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Pathology, VSPM Dental College and Research Centre, Nagpur, Maharashtra, India.
Aparna
A
Thombre
BDS Final Year Student, Chhattisgarh Dental College and Research Institute, Chhattisgarh, India.
Pratik
P
Surana
Cheiloscopy; forensic science; lip prints; personal identification