Assessment of lip print (cheiloscopy) patterns and its use for personal identification and crime investigation: A systematic review and Meta-Analysis

Objective:Human identification plays a vital role in crime investigation. Lip impressions are one of the evidences that may be left at crime scenes, which aid in the precise documentation process. The objectives of the current systematic review and meta-analysis (CMA) are to provide a deeper understanding of the use of cheiloscopy as a reliable method in sex identification and to establish the predominant lip print pattern found among different genders using the classification proposed by Suzuki and Tsuchihashi. Study Design: A systematic review and meta-analysis Result:The most likely lip print present among males in the selected studies was type III (30.2%), followed by type II (29.9%), and type I comprised one-fifth of the sample size (21.1%). While among females, almost one-third were reported with type I lip print pattern (36.5%), followed by type II (28.9%). Furthermore, the results showed that the rate of type IV lip print pattern was similar between males and females (18.3% and 13.4%, respectively; P<0.059). Conclusion: Along with the other traditional methods of human identification, this study proved the distinctiveness of lip print (cheiloscopy) as an adjuvant tool for human identification and sex determination and no identically similar lip-print patterns appeared in two subjects.