Cheiloscopy: A new role as a marker of sagittal jaw relation

CONTEXT: It has been proved that lip prints are analogous to thumb prints. A correlation between thumb prints and sagittal dental malocclusion has already been established. Soft tissue is gaining more importance in judgement of deformity or identity of a patient. AIM: To find a correlation between sagittal skeletal jaw relation and lip prints. SETTINGS AND DESIGN: Descriptive, cross-sectional, comparative, single-blind, hospital-based study. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A total of 90 patients were categorized into skeletal class I, class II, and class III, comprising 30 patients in each group with equal gender distribution. Dolphin imaging (10.5) software was used for analyzing sagittal jaw relation. Lip prints obtained from these 90 patients were analyzed. STATISTICAL ANALYSES USED: Karl Pearson's correlation coefficient, Chi-square test, t-test, Spearman's co-efficient, analysis of variance (ANOVA). RESULTS: It was observed that angle ANB (Angle formed between points nasion[N] to Subnasal[A] and nasion[N] to supramental [B]) and beta angle were statistically significant, revealing a strong negative correlation (-0.9060) with different classes of jaw relation. Significant difference was observed between genders in all the three classes. Significant difference was observed in relation to lip print and the quadrants of upper and lower lips. A statistical significance was noted on the right side of both upper and lower arches. CONCLUSION: This study shows that lip prints can be employed for sagittal jaw relation recognition. A further study on various ethnic backgrounds with a larger sample size in individual group is necessary for comparing lip prints and malocclusion.