Lip morphometry and morphologic pattern variation by ethnicity.

Abstract

The aim of this research is to document and classify common lip print patterns and lip measurements, to evaluate their variations in Polish, Russian, Lithuanian women populations. 371 women (151 Lithuanians, 145 Poles, 75 Russians) from Vilnius University participated in this research. A questionnaire and lip print collection were administered. Each lip print was divided into six sextants, examined and classified. 120 women were photographed by Vectra M3 3D (Canfield Imaging Systems, USA) camera, lip morphometry was analyzed. In all lip print sextants, Type I was the most common among Lithuanians, Type III - among Polish and Type V - among Russian women. A statistically significant difference was found between Type I lip print pattern and Lithuanian ethnicity (p = 0.001) and Type III and Polish ethnicity (p = 0.015). The values of medial vertical height of cutaneous upper lip (p = 0.045), height of upper lip (p = 0.034), philtrum width (p = 0.020), height of lower vermilion (p = 0.015), upper lip vermilion area (p = 0.022), upper lip volume (p = 0.034) and total lip volume (p = 0.05) statistically significantly varied between the ethnicities. Morphometric findings were similar to other morphometric research on Caucasians.