Fingerprints
There are many questions about fingerprints , some of them are...
Q What are fingerprint , Are Fingerprints unique ?
Q Why do we have fingerprints , How a person change his/her finger impressions.
Q Reasons for fingerprints disappearance. And so many....
Lets try to solve this.....
Fingerprints form in the womb during the first trimester and completed in second trimester. They are permanent throughout the life and even for days after death. They are one of the natural identity and remain unchanged forever.
But there are cases of fingerprints disappearance and the reasons are.....
1) The old age - Fingerprints don't change with age but its difficult to capture them in older people. The reason behind it is , the skin loses its elasticity with age and the patterns become less prominent and ridges of the fingers not as pronounced. Aging also lead to lose fingerprints.
2) Some specific jobs - Bricklayers , massage therapists , dry cleaning workers and people who frequently wash dishes by hand can literally lose some of the details and even lead to that no pattern is evident. Secretaries , file clerks , typists and piano players can suffer from fading of fingerprints. People who working with chemicals like calcium oxide can also lose some details in their fingerprints.
3) Diseases - Certain skin diseases that destroy the layer of skin lead to loss of
fingerprints. These include Dermatitis , primary hyperhidrosis , irritant contact dermatitis, atopic dermatitis , dyshidrotic eczema , scleroderma , psoriasis and mechanical abrasion .
4) Drugs/medicine - some drugs particularly used in cancer treatment (chemotherapy) , drug capecitabine/xeloda (usually for breast or colon cancer) would be an example , their prolonged use lead to Hand-Foot Syndrome and loss of fingerprints.
5) Genetic conditions - Genetic conditions result in a person to be born without fingerprints.....
A - Nargeli Franceschetti jadassohn Syndrome (NFJS)
and Dermatopathia pigmentosa reticularis (DPR) . Both diseases are due to keratin related gene mutations.
B - Adermatoglyphia -
Absence or loss of fingerprints has been reported as a very rare condition called adermatoglyphia , often referred as immigration delay disease. It has no symptoms other than the loss of fingerprints. Found to run in families , due to mutation in a protein gene , SMACRAD1 .
Criminals try to damage , alter or remove their fingerprints by deep cut , burning , applied acids etc but the damaged skin can reproduce cells to form the fingerprints exactly as they were before , unless the cut penetrates the dermis and even with permanent scarring, the new scar becomes a unique identity mark .
In this century where fingerprints used as a biometric technology in government and private organisations, aviation and immigration , office access , military , bank accounts operations , for mobile and computers access and so on , the loss/disappearance of fingerprints affected the person with serious implications.
