Lip prints and its relationship with angle's classification of molar relation-An observational study

In Orthodontics, competency of lip is one of the most important assessment to be done for treatment planning. There are studies on correlation of lip prints and skeletal malocclusions, and not much studies focused on relationship between the lip print and molar relation. Occlusion has been broadly classified as Class I, Class II and Class III. This study aims in studying the prevalence of 5 types of lip prints in three different groups of molar relation. The results of this prevalence study, may aid in evidence in personal identification in the field of Forensic Odontology.

To find if there is any significant relation between the type of lip print and the Angle's molar relation.

60 subjects were included and were divided to three groups corresponding to the Angles classification of malocclusion as Class-I, Class-II and Class-III. 20 subjects were included in each group. The lip print pattern of all the 60 subjects was traced using lipstick on a cellophane tape and was pasted on a chart paper for future analysis. The relation between type of lip print and the type of molar relation was assessed.

The correlation coefficient was established to assess relationship with Angle's Molar relation and lip prints which proved to be statistically insignificant (p->0.05).

Type I is the most prevalent lip print in all the 3 molar relations. There is no significant relationship between the type of lip print and the molar relation. Unique 12 digit lip print typing established in this study can be further explored to prove the significance of lip print in biometrics.