QUANTITATIVE DERMATOGLYPHIC PATTERNS IN FEMALE BREAST CANCER PATIENTS

Purpose: Recently, quantitative dermatoglyphic examinations have been intensively carried out for screening purposes in oncology. Material/Methods: The present study covered 82 women aged between 36 and 80 years with clinically, histologically and mammographically confirmed breast cancer and 60 healthy women aged between 31 and 79 years from the region of Varna, Bulgaria. Two dermatoglyphic methods were applied: i) dactyloscopy of finger ridge count and finger indexes and ii) palmoscopy - palmar ridge count, palmar maximal atd, adt and dat angles, and palmar main lines. Statistical data processing was performed by means of variation analysis, regression analysis, χ2 test and one-way ANOVA using the SPSS software package, version 19. Results: The results from the dactyloscopic and palmoscopic examinations revealed several statistically significant differences in these quantitative dermatoglyphic patterns between breast cancer females and healthy ones. Conclusion: We could conclude that the purposeful examinations of the quantitative dactyloscopic patterns such as total finger ridge count and finger indexes and quantitative palmoscopic traits such as palmar ridge count, maximal adt, atd and dat angles and main palmar lines play a promising role for the cost-effective and trustworthy breast cancer screening in Bulgaria.