Association of fingerprint patterns with periodontal disease among patients visiting a dental clinic

For the study, ethicalapproval would be obtained from the Kasturba hospital ethics Committee.

Anobservational study will be conducted on all patients visiting the Dentalclinics. All patients will be screened at the Dept. of Oral Medicine forrecruitment into the study based on the inclusion and exclusion criteria, and aconvenience sampling method will be followed for recruitment. Sample size of 75will be taken in this study. The purpose of the study will be explained to theparticipants, informing them of anonymity and confidentiality, and receivingwritten consent from the subjects.

 Thepatient will be recruited after the patient information and consent followed byevaluation of periodontal status, after which the finger ridge pattern will betaken.

 Initially,finger ridge patterns of all fingers from both left and right hands would becaptured using standard ink method for assessment. Thefingers will be cleaned and dried before taking the fingerprint. Thefingerprint will be recorded on a fingerprint recording format.

 Allpatients would then undergo evaluation of periodontal status by a trained examiner(Principal studentresearcher under the guidance of Principal Investigator) The periodontal status will be evaluated using the 2017 classification of Periodontal and Peri-ImplantDiseases and Conditions.Staging and grading of periodontitis will be doneto categorize the patients.

 A clinicalproforma will be used for recording the various parameters that comprise theclassification system, which include

1.     Probing pocket depth

2.     Probing attachment loss

3.     Bleeding on Probing

4.     Radiological bone loss

5.     Interdental Clinical attachment level

6.     Tooth loss

7.     Furcation involvement

8.     Ridge defect

9.     Bite collapse

10.  Drifting

11.  Flaring

12.  Presence of biofilm

13.  Smoking

14.  Diabetes

15.  Endo-perio lesions

16.  Periodontal abscess

17.  Gingival Recession

18.  Occlusal trauma

 The finger - prints obtained would then be coded for subsequentmanual evaluation of finger ridge patterns by the Dept. of Forensic medicine.

 The obtained data will be statistically analyzed for distributionof finger ridge patterns among the various categories of periodontitis patientsas obtained by the 2017 classification of periodontal diseases. Furthermore, asecondary outcome will be to determine any association between periodontaldisease and finger ridge patterns.

 StageI- Initial Periodontitis

StageII- Moderate Periodontitis

StageIII- Severe Periodontitis with potential for additional tooth loss

StageIV- Severe Periodontitis with potential for loss of the dentition