Cheiloscopic variation among the students of avicenna medical college lahore

Objective: objective of study was to evaluate common pattern of lip prints among the mbbs 3rd year students study design: observational descriptive study place and duration of study: the present study was conducted in the avicenna medical college lahore in the department of forensic medicine and toxicology from february 2012 to april 2012 materials and methods: lip prints were collected from the subjects after obtaining their informed consent in the month of february-april 2012. a total of 100 mbbs,3rd year students of the avicenna medical college lahore participated in the study. lip prints were recorded on a white paper and each lip print was assigned by their serial numbers and roll no. of student. the name and general information of the students like age,sex and blood groups and ethnicity were recorded on the proforma. patterns of lip prints were classified according to suzuki and tsuchihashi classification. all the subjects were in the age range of 19-25 years consisting of 30 male and 70 female students. ethical clearance was obtained from the institutional ethical committee. results: the most common pattern of lip prints was long vertical groove or type-i,sixty students (60%),second common pattern was the type-ii branching grooves,twenty (20%),type-ii of short vertical grooves were only eight (8%),second least common pattern which were found to the type-iii and type-iv each group was consisting of five students (5%),very least pattern of lip print was found to be other type grooves or type-v,only two (2%) students were found to be belonging to this group. conclusion: lip print pattern is unique for each of the examined individual. this finding is hoped to be useful in the identification process,both in civil and criminal cases.