Journal of Pediatric Research · Published 2026-07-02 · DOI 10.4274/jpr.galenos.2026.20280
Büşra Bilge Sağlam, Levent Özer, Akif Demirel, Kaan Orhan
Aim: This study aimed to evaluate age- and sex-related variations in palatal rugae and to determine whether digital maxillary scans could detect distinctive patterns in rugae count, position, length, shape, and unification. Materials and Methods: Plaster casts from 180 children (90 boys, 90 girls; aged 5-6, 7, 8, 9, 12, 13 years) were digitized with a scanner. The rugae were measured in terms of their number, position, length, shape and unification. The statistical analysis comprised the application of the Mann-Whitney U and Kruskal-Wallis tests to evaluate age- and sex-related differences. Significance was set at 0.05 and Bonferroni-adjusted thresholds were employed in instances of multiple comparisons. Results: The counts (right, left, total) were comparable across age groups for both sexes and overall (p>0.0083), and there was no difference between boys and girls within any age group (p>0.0071). The rugae position, length and shape exhibited no evidence of variation related to sex or age-by-sex interactions (p>0.05). Conclusion: Within the limitations of this cross-sectional study, palatal rugae characteristics showed no statistically significant age- or sex-related differences in this pediatric sample. These findings suggest that palatal rugae may have limited utility for age estimation when used alone, and their forensic relevance should be clarified in further longitudinal and multi-population studies.
Abstract from DOAJ. Public domain (CC0 1.0).
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Sağlam, B., Özer, L., Demirel, A., et al. (2026). Evaluation of the Effects of Palatal Rugae on the Determination of Sex and Age in a Group of Children: A Cross-Sectional Study. Journal of Pediatric Research. https://doi.org/10.4274/jpr.galenos.2026.20280