Dermatoglyphics in seizure disorders.

A dermatoglyphic study of 197 adult Caucasian males with a confirmed diagnosis of epilepsy was carried out in an attempt to ascertain possible associations between aberrant dermatoglyphic and seizures and to estimate their diagnostic usefulness. Qualitative and quantitative fingertip and palmar dermatoglyphic traits were evaluated. The data were analyzed by etiology seizures. Previous studies and our own earlier data (Schaumann 1979) analyzed by univariate statistical methods indicated the presence of some dermatoglyphic deviations in patients with epilepsy, suggesting the existence of a genetic predisposition to seizures of various etiologies. In the present study, a multivariate analysis was employed on an enlarged patient sample. Three variables were found to be significant: an increased main line index on the right palm (p less than .01) and decreased a-b ridge counts on both left and right palms (p less than .001). Tests of the eigenvalues showed only one value to be significant and accounting for 71.8% of the intergroup variation.