Palatal rugae patterns in the Serbian population

Abstract

Establishing the gender of a dead person is one of the main aspects in forensic medicine, especially in cases of massive disasters. Palatal rugae have been related with specific racial groups and are said to be useful in sex determination. One hundred pre-orthodontic plaster casts, equally distributed between males and females with an age range of 15-30 years, were examined for different rugae patterns by the Thomas classification. The total number of rugae was not significantly gender linked. According to size, the primary type of rugae was dominant in both males and females. Wavy and curved patterns of rugae were the most common, both in males and females. There was a significant sex difference in the circular and converging types which was higher in males and females, respectively. [Projekat Ministarstva nauke Republike Srbije, br. 41018 i br. 45004]

The Heritability of Palatal Rugae Morphology Among Siblings*†

“…Besides, this study group had more divergent type of rugae than convergent rugae. This finding was similar to the unification pattern observed in Egyptians and Indians but in contrast with Sudanese, Libyans, Serbians, and Bengalis which were predominantly convergent (23,27–29,32,34). The unification pattern was not statistically different between the sibling groups in this study.…”

“…The unification pattern was not statistically different between the sibling groups in this study. In contrast, Sudanese and Serbian females showed significantly more convergent rugae than males (23,27). Meanwhile, Iranian and southeast, North, and West Indian males showed significantly more divergent rugae than their counterparts (35–37).…”

“…The rugae were predominantly wavy which is commonly documented in most populations such as in Serbians, Turkish, Australians, Iraqi, Bosnians, Indians and Africans (20–26) and Chileans with sinuous patterns (13). In contrast, Egyptians and Indonesians had predominantly line rugae (3,27) alike Iranians and Koreans who have straight rugae patterns (16,19).…”