Determination of Sex by Cheiloscopy as an Aid to Establish Personal Identity

Abstract

Background: Establishment of individuality is the basic concept of the humanity, which formulates personal identity. Forensic medicine is basically the science of identification and during last few decades multiple research work has been conducted for detection of different methods of identification to establish a baseline of identity e.g. dental data, fingerprinting, DNA analysis, anthropometry, identification of sex, assessment of age, determination of height and blood groups identification. Among these, DNA analysis and dental data provide easiest identifications, however, these techniques are expensive and not readily available
necessitating additional techniques for identification. One of such novel approach is cheiloscopy i.e. study of lip print patterns. Methodology: In order to investigate the lip prints-based identification, a study was conducted in the Shaikh Khalifa Bin Zayed Al-Nahyan Medical College, Lahore. A total of 125 female and 125 male student subjects were selected from all years of MBBS students Session 2016. Results: After detailed study and evaluation of lip patterns of 250 subjects, 96 males and 105 females were correctly identified based upon lip prints. Conclusion: Lip prints can and should be included in the forensic sciences as a means of establishment of individuality especially for criminals.