Palatal rugae patterns based on gender in Jember Indonesia

Introduction: Palatal rugae are anatomical structures located within the oral cavity. The teeth, buccal mucosa, and lips protect these structures from trauma. Palatal rugae have a unique individually characteristics. Therefore, palatal rugoscopy could determine sex differention in forensic odontology. The aim of this study was to identify the characteristics of palatal rugae patterns based on sex differention. 
Materials and Methods: This study involved 200 maxillary cast samples consisting of 100 male and 100 female samples. We observed the palatal rugae patterns based on shape, unification, and length on the maxillary casts according to the Thomas and Kotze classification (1983). Then subsequently analyzed the differences in palatal rugae patterns between males and females using the Chi-square test with SPSS version 29.2,  with level of significance  p < 0.05. 
Results and Discussion: Palatal rugae shape in males were predominantly wavy (41.92%), respectively followed by curved (30.45%), straight (25.85%), and circular patterns (1.79%) whereas in females were predominantly curved (33.52%), respectively followed by wavy (32.64%), straight (31.69%), and circular patterns (2.15%). Diverging represented the most common unification pattern in both sex (69.6%), followed by converging (30.4%). Primary rugae represented the dominant palatal rugae length category in male and female (74.3%), followed by secondary rugae (18.1%) and fragmented rugae (7.6%). 
Conclusion: Palatal rugae patterns possess unique characteristics in every individual. However, there were no significance differences in male and female