Dermatoglyphics in Down's syndrome. II. Evaluation of scoring methods.

A number of methods developed in different countries for the use of dermatoglyphics as an objective test for the confirmation of the clinical diagnosis of Down's syndrome were evaluated for a group of 308 Dutch individuals. Optimal results were obtained by the approach proposed at John Hopkins University (U.S.A.). The Hopkins composite score correctly scored 97.7 % of the individuals tested, whereas the Hopkins single pattern scoring method correctly scored 95.5 % of individuals. A simplified use of scoring methods is proposed in a forthcoming paper.