J . ment. Defic. Res. (1979) 23, 85 85

SOLE DERMATOGLYPHICS OF PATIENTS WITHKLINEFELTER'S SYNDROME ( 47,XXY )

Y. KOMATZ,* T. KIRIYAMA and O. YOSHIDA

Department of Urology, Faculty of Medicine, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan

There have been several studies of sole prints of patients with XXY Klinefelter'ssyndrome (Holt, 1963, 1968; Cushman and Sol tan, 1969; Penrose and Loesch, 1970;Saldana-Garcia, 1975). In the plantar patterns of this syndrome, no characteristicfindings, such as large whorls, large distal loops in the hallucal area and absence oftriradius p that have been reported in Turner's syndrome (Holt, 1968) have beennoted. On the other hand, the frequencies of several plantar pattern elements in theXXY syndrome were reported to be different from those of normal male and femalesubjects (Penrose and Loesch, 1970; Saldana-Garcia, 1975). In this paper, soleprints findings of eighty cases of Klinefelter's syndrome (XXY) will be studied andcompared with other reports in order to clarify the characteristics of this sex chromo-somal aberration.

MATERIALS AND METHODSThe subjects of this study were eighty Japanese patients with Klinefelter's

syndrome, seen at the Infertility Clinic of the Department of Urology, Kyoto Uni-versity Hospital. In all cases, the karyotype was determined by peripheral bloodculture to be 47,XXY. Of these, we have already reported on the dermatoglyphictraits, other than sole prints, of sixty-five (Komatz and Yoshida, 1977, 1978). Thecontrols consisted of a hundred males and a hundred females, chosen from urologicalpatients who were admitted to this hospital for problems not related to a congenitalcondition (fifty-five males, forty-nine females), or their spouses without phenotypicanomalies (forty-five males, fifty-one females). We have eliminated individuals withany known consanguineous ties with a subject already studied. They are all Japaneseand inhabitants of the Kyoto region. The ages of the patients varied from nineteento forty-six, those of the control males from five to eighty-two and those of the controlfemales from eight to sixty-six. Sole prints were collected by using high quality whitepaper and black ink. The prints were analysed by the method of Penrose and Loesch(1969), and the frequency of appearance of loops and triradii in the patient andcontrol groups compared. Additionally, hallucal patterns were classified into sevenmain types, whorl (W), loop distal (L''), loop tibial (L'), loop fibular (L^), archtibial (A'), arch fibular (A )̂ and arch proximal (AP), and the frequency of hallucalpattern types in the patients and controls was compared. The plantar pattern intensitywas determined by the number of loops found per foot (Penrose and Loesch, 1970).

^Yosuke Komatz, M.D., Department of Urology, Faculty of Medicine, Kyoto University,Sakyo-ku, Kyoto, 606 Japan

Received 30th October, 1978

Y. KOMATZ et al. 89

fact that distal loops (II) in the second interdigitai area and tibial loops (V) in thehypothenar area were found m.ore frequently in XXY patients and no significantdecrease was observed in the rate at which loops were found in the other plantarareas. Penrose and Loesch (1970), on the other hand, have stated that patternintensity significantly decreases in patients with Klinefelter's syndrome. This wasnot so in our sample.

It has been reported that triradius p is found most frequently among patientswith some sex chromosome aberrations, such as XXY, XYY or XXX (Saidafia-Garcia, 1973, 1975). We also found it higher in XXY cases than among normalmales and females, though not significantly so for males. Penrose and Loesch (1970)reported that triradius p tends to decrease in XXY cases, but again, our findingsdid not verify this.

It has been reported that the frequency of interdigitai triradii (z, z', z") declineswith XXY (Penrose and Loesch, 1970; Saidafia-Garcia, 1975). Among our series,it was low among both patient and control groups, thus failing to support thisopinion.

We believe that the following three traits can be cited as statistically significantcharacteristics of sole dermatoglyphics in patients with Klinefelter's syndrome inJapanese subjects: (1) the distal loops in the hallucal area are often small ones with alow ridge count; (2) pattern intensity is higher, and (3) triradius j!) increases.

SUMMARYWe have reported the dermatoglyphic findings on the soles of eighty Japanese

Klinefelter's syndrome patients (47,XXY). As compared with normal Japanese malesand females, three statistically different traits were observed: (1) Distal loops in thehallucal area are smaller, (2) pattern intensity is higher, and (3) the frequency oftriradius p is elevated.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSThe authors are greatly indebted to Dr T. Abe, Department of Preventive

Medicine, Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine, who kindly provided theresults of cytogenetical analysis.

REFERENCESCUSHMAN, C . J. and SOLTAN, H . C . (1969) Dermatoglyphics in Klinefelter's syndrome

(47, XXY). Hum. Hered. 19, 641.HOLT, S. B . (1963) Dermatoglyphic anomalies associated with abnormal sex chromosomes.

Proc. XI Int. Congr. Genet. 1, 315.

HOLT, S. B. (1968) The Genetics of Dermal Ridges. Charles G. Thomas.KOMATZ, Y. and YOSHIDA, O . (1977) Terminations of palmar main lines and main-line indices

in 47,XXY Klinefelter's syndrome. Jap. J. Human Genet. 22, 281.KOMATZ, Y . and YOSHIDA, O . (1978) Palmar dermatoglyphics of the patients with Klinefelter's

syndrome (47,XXY). Jap. J. Human Genet. 23, 245.PENROSE, L . S. and LOESCH. D . (1969) Dermatoglyphic sole patterns: A new attempt at

classification. Hum. Biol. 41, 129.

90 SOLE DERMATOGLYPHICS OF 47,XXY PATIENTS

PENROSE, L . S. and. LOESCH, D . (1970) Comparative study of sole patterns in chromosomalabnormalities. J. ment. Defic. Res. 14, 129.

SALDANA-GARCIA, P. (1973) A dermatoglyphic study of sixty-four XYY males. Ann. Hum.Genet. 37, 107.

SALDANA-GARCIA, P. (1975) Dermatoglyphic findings in 54 triple-X females and a review ofsome general principles applying to the soles in sex chromosome aneuploidy. J. med.Genet. 12, 185.