Palatoscopy: An adjunct to forensic odontology: A comparative study among five different populations of India.

Objectives: This study was conducted to analyze and identify differences in the palatal rugae patterns and to identify gender wise changes in the palatal rugae shapes in populations of five different states of India. Study Design: Study was conducted in five different Indian states. 500 sample subjects from Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra were included. Rugae patterns with predominant shapes were analyzed and categorized according to different states and both genders, data was statistically analyzed using SPSS software 15.0 and the results were obtained by Chi-square analysis. Results: "Wavy" type of palatal rugae pattern is the most predominant variant in five different study groups in both the genders. Conclusion: This study could identify variations in distribution of various palatal rugae pattern in five different states and confirmed the "wavy" type of palatal rugae patterns to be the most predominant variant in five different study groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]