Sex Determination by Morphometry of Lips.

摘要

Background: Facial anthropometric parameters areaffected by various factors including age, sex,ethnicity, socioeconomic status, environment andregion. The lips become thinner as age increases andthe wet line moves caudally, in addition oralcommissure begins to downturn. Aim and Objectives:The purpose of this study was to create a baseline datain determining the sex of the people from India andMalaysia depending on morphometry of lips.Materials and Methods:Atotal of 100 Malaysians and100 South Indians were enrolled for the study. Variousmorphometric measurements of lips were taken usingVernier caliper. The data were analyzed by one wayANOVAto find out the significance among the sex andpopulation. Results: All the measurements of upperand lower lips were higher in males as compared tofemales and thus sexual dimorphism exists. Mouthwidth and height were found to be more in Indianmales followed by Malaysian males whereas infemales it's vice versa. Vermilion upper lip occupiedless than half of total upper lip height, whereasvermilion lower lip occupied more than half of totallower lip height in both the population. Indian malesand females differed significantly in lip parametersfrom those of Malaysian males and females.Conclusion: It can be concluded from the study thatsame standards cannot be used on each other'spopulations for identification and cosmetic surgery.The study highlights the applied significance ofobservations to forensic medicine namely, personalidentification, racial and sex dimorphic criteria ofidentification.