Study of Lower Lip Proportions in North Indian Adults

Abstract

<p><strong>Background:</strong> Anthropometry, the science of measurement of living subjects has been shown to be useful in reconstructive surgery and in orthodontics, where the soft tissue morphology of the face can be studied more reliably as compared to radiographs.</p><p><strong>Objectives:</strong> The purpose of the study was to create base data of the vertical measurements of the lower lips and proportion of lower lip parameters.</p><p><strong>Material and Methods:</strong> The study comprises of lower lip proportion of 600 North Indian adults (300 males and 300 females). Prior informed written consent for this study was obtained from the subjects. The exclusion and inclusion criteria for the subjects were predefined. The measurements were statistically analyzed by using 't test' by SPSS version 15.</p><p><strong>Results:</strong> The lower lip parameters showed sex dimorphism. The height of cutaneous lower lip, height of vermilion lower lip and total lower lip height was significantly (p<0.001) more in males. Two Lip indices was calculated. The lip index 2 was significantly more in males.</p><p><strong>Conclusion:</strong> In case of lower lip, less than half of total lower lip height was occupied by cutaneous portion of lower lip and rest was covered by vermilion portion of lower lip. This study highlights the applied significance of observations of present study to forensic namely personal identification, racial and sex dimorphic criteria of identification.</p>