Abstract
Objective: To determine the number and pattern of palatal rugae in Nepalese subjects and to find the association of gender with the number and pattern of palatal rugae.
 Materials & Method: 200 Nepalese subjects comprising of 100 male and 100 female were randomly selected and their maxillary casts were examined for the palatal rugae length applying the classification proposed by Thomas and Kotze and palatal rugae pattern was recorded using the classification given by Kapali. Statistical analysis using Student t-test was applied for comparing the number of palatal rugae between right and left sides. Chi square test was used to find the association between gender and number of rugae as well as the pattern.
 Result: The study demonstrated that the mean number of primary palatal rugae on left side was predominant, similarly wavy pattern was the most predominant in Nepalese subjects. No statistical significant difference was noticed in the palatal rugae number and pattern between the gender groups.
 Conclusion: The study found predominant palatal form in Nepalese subjects which might have superior effectiveness in population differentiation and may be used as an effective tool in forensic odontology identification.
Highlights
Human identification is based on scientific principles mainly involving fingerprints, dental records and DNA analysis
The study of palatal rugae is called as Rugoscopy
Apart from other fields like anthropology; rugoscopy is used in the fields of dentistry like forensic odontology, prosthodontics and orthodontics.[5]
Summary
Human identification is based on scientific principles mainly involving fingerprints, dental records and DNA analysis. DNA isolation may be expensive and technique sensitive dental records provide durable evidence in post mortem identification.[1,2] Like dentition, palatal rugae are considered unique to individuals as well as consistent in shape throughout life.[3, 4]. Palatal rugae are epithelial ridges on anterior part of palatal mucosa on each side of mid palatine raphe behind incisive papilla. These asymmetric ridges are well protected inside the oral cavity due to its anatomical position in incidents of trauma and incernation thereby providing an excellent post mortem details in human identification. Various studies have shown significant difference in rugae pattern amongst the same and different races.[4, 6, 7]
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