Morphological study of the lips’ grooves in an Italian population

Purpose: Previous studies described the patterns and the systems of the lips’ grooves of different populations for subject identification in forensic medicine. Till the date, no studies have been carried out on Italian sample. Our study aimed to describe the pattern and the system of the lip print in an Italian population. Methods: Lip prints from 96 Italian subjects were taken as it follows: a thin film of lipstick was applied onto cleaned and dried upper and lower lips and then the impressions of the lips were taken using a transparent adhesive tape. The grooves were identified and classified according the Suzuki and Tsuchihashi’s classification. Thereby a pattern was assigned. A computational analysis of the lip prints was pursued, so a lip resin cast was realized and scanned by a 3D scanner. The related rendering was considered. Results: Lip prints resulted obviouåly not overlapping at all, but within the used classification system, 68 different patterns in the upper lips and 53 different patterns in the inferior lips were found. The most frequent pattern resulted 3-4-4-3 and 2-1-1-2, respectively for upper lips and lower lips. A volume rendering of the resin cast was obtained from the 3D analysis. The related points map allowed to distinguish the highnesses and the deepness along the entire surfaces of the lip. Conclusion: The morphological analysis of the lip-prints confirmed their uniqueness in the considered sample, and integrated the lack of data regarding the Italian populations. The 3D-analysis confirmed to be a sound and valid method improving the acquisition and the analysis of the lip-prints.