A Comparative Study of Dermatoglyphic Patterns in Patients with Myocardial Infarction and Control Group

Coronary artery disease (CAD) is the most important cause of mortality and morbidity in the world. The knowledge of major risk factors can be useful in prevention of CAD. There is no known major risk factor in many patients with myocardial infarction (MI). The dermatoglyphic pattern in patients with myocardial infarction is an interesting matter and little information is available about this relationship. The objective of this study is to investigate the relation between the dermatoglyphic pattern as indication of genetic susceptibility in the incidence of myocardial infarction. We conducted a multi-centre cross-sectional study of 900 patients with diagnosis of myocardial infarction admitted or referred to six hospitals in three large cities in the north of Iran. The control group consisted of 900 subjects who were selected from those who were referred to police information system at the time when cases had been diagnosed. The dermatoglyphic pattern of finger lines was determined using classic categorization by supervision of experts in Identification Diagnosis Administration Office. For each subject 10 fingerprints had been derived. Overall, 9000 fingerprints for cases and 9000 fingerprints for control group were obtained for analysis. The findings show that 55.3% of cases were male and 44.7% were female and 70.6% of patients had, Q-wave and 29.6% had non-Q wave MI. In patients group, the distribution of dermatoglyphic pattern was 7.2 % arch type, 46.8 % loop type, and 46% whorl type of fingerprints. In contrast, in the control group, there were 3.7%, 50.7% and 45.5% respectively. The odds ratio(OR) of arch type vs whorl type was 1. 89 (P < 0. 0001) and odds ratio of loop type vs whorl type was 1. 23 (P < 0. 0001). This result shows a statistical significant increase in the rate of arch type fingerprints in patients with MI roughly two times. Also, in subgroup analysis, the percentage of arch type was significantly increased in left thumb, left forefinger and left ring finger among cases (P < 0. 0001) Our findings indicated that there is a significant relation between the arch types of fingerprint and the risk of MI. Thus, dermatoglyphic analysis of subjects can help in early detection of persons with susceptibility to myocardial infarction, particularly among those without major risk factors, especially, among subjects with arch type pattern of fingerprint on the left thumb,