Dermal ridge configurations in retinal detachment.

An analysis of dermal ridge configuration in 95 retinal detachment patients showed characteristic association with different aetiological bases of the condition like myopia, aphakia, vitreous degeneration and idiopathic factors. The study revealed a significantly high frequency of whorls on fingers and low mean interdigital ridge counts in the patients as compared to controls. Aphakic detachments showed maximum and vitreous degeneration detachments minimum variation from controls for all characters except the main line terminations. Of all the parameters studied, main line terminations contributed maximum for the variation between the detachment types. The results are discussed in light of the contribution of dermatoglyphic characters to the aetiology of retinal detachment.