Fingerprint changes among cancer patients treated with paclitaxel.

BACKGROUND: Fingerprints have long been used for personal identification; however, some case reports suggested that some chemotherapy agents such as paclitaxel lead to fingerprints loss due to hand-and-foot syndrome (HFS).

METHODS: This case-control study was performed on 65 patients who received chemotherapy regimens with/without paclitaxel. Patients with the history of receiving any drugs with significant HFS adverse effect or patients with any conditions that affect fingerprints were excluded. Baseline and post-chemotherapy images of fingerprint examples were referred to the Iranian Society of Legal Medicine to compare changes in the fingerprints.

RESULTS: Thirty-one patients entered in the paclitaxel and 34 subjects in the control groups. Seventeen patients (54.8%) in the paclitaxel group experienced fingerprint changes, whereas no patient had fingerprint changes in the control group. By physical examination, no patients in the two groups experienced HFS. After adjusting for age, sex, occupation, and cancer type, there was a significant difference between the two groups regarding fingerprint changes (P = 0.002, OR 13.69, 95% CI 2.05 to infinite).

CONCLUSIONS: Considering that fingerprint recognition has been utilized in both government and civilian investigation, patients taking paclitaxel and centers necessitating fingerprint identification should be informed about possible fingerprint changes by paclitaxel.