Palm-print Pattern in Congenital Heart Disease.

In a previous paper (Sainchez Cascos, 1964) the results of an analysis of the finger-print pattern in a series of 150 patients with congenital heart disease were presented. Statistically significant differences were found between the patients as a whole and a normal control group and also between different diagnostic groups in the series. These differences seemed to be due to a relatively small number of patients who had abnormal patterns, and we suggested that these patients could represent the genetically determined fraction of congenital heart abnormalities. In this paper the results of a palm-print analysis in 150 cases of congenital heart disease are presented. Most of these, but not all, are the same patients as those reported in the earlier paper. The palm-print, like the finger-print, shows a complex pattern of ridges. In such a print the term "triradius" is used to describe a point from which three ridges radiate demarcating three regions, each of which contains a system of almost parallel ridges (Penrose, 1963). The palm-print usually contains five triradii (Fig. 1 and 2); four of them are found at the base of the second to fifth fingers and are called, respectively, the a, b, c, and d points; the fifth triradius is located near the base of the fourth metacarpal and is called the axial or t triradius. Sometimes the t triradius is displaced distally towards the centre of the palm and the symbols t' and t" are used to indicate progressive distal displacement. Occasionally a t'triradius is found in addition to the normally placed t (Fig. 2), in which case only the abnormal t' triradius is used for the angle measurements described below. The atd angle is under strong genetic control (Penrose, 1954) and its variation has been studied extensively in mongolism and other chromosomal abnormalities. This paper reports a study of this angle and of the triangle based on the a, d, and t points in this series of patients with congenital heart disease.