Cheiloscopy as a Tool for Identification

Establishing the identity of the living or the deceased, which is an essence of any crime investigation, is one of the most challenging matters that forensic science has to deal with. Cheiloscopy is one of the newly emerging tools that aid in this. It is the study of the grooves present on the human lips, at the zone of transition of outer skin and inner labial mucosa. The present study was conducted in the Department of Anatomy, Gauhati Medical College, Guwahati, Assam, amongst a group of 145 1st MBBS students comprising of 89 males and 56 females, with an aim to determine the predominant lip print pattern in different lip quadrants and also to find out any similarity in distribution of lip print patterns in different quadrants in males and females. The prints were analysed after dividing the lips into four quadrants: right upper as Quadrant I, left upper as Quadrant II, left lower as Quadrant III, and right lower as Quadrant IV. The patterns were analyzed following the classification of Suzuki and Tsuchihashi. The recorded data were then statistically analysed using Student's T-test. P value < 0.05 is considered as statistically significant. The data obtained in this study hopes to contribute to the knowledge and understanding of the uniqueness and distribution of lip prints and in turn help in certain medico-legal practices.