Indian Journal of Forensic Odontology

  Cone beam computed tomography (CBCT) has gained its importance in the last few decades and has been widely employed in dento-maxillofacial imaging. The technique has a supplementary advantage of relatively lower radiation exposure over providing a high spatial resolution of osseous structures when compared with conventional or medical CT scans. Clinical dental setups necessitate a lesser space occupying imaging systems which are certainly offered by CBCT. The CBCT is employed for imaging in dental implantology, orthodontia, oral and maxillofacial surgery and has extended the boundaries into the field of forensics in dentistry. The CBCT archives serve as a reliable source of evidence for antemortem and postmortem records by assisting in age estimation, gender, and personal identification. The current review is an overview of various applications of using Cone beam computed tomography in the field of forensic radiology. 

Keywords: Forensic Science; Forensic Radiology; Cone Beam Computed Tomography; Age Estimation; Sex Determination; Personal Identification; Human Identification; Pre & Post-Mortem Records.

  Virtopsy (virtual autopsy) is the new age complimentary documentation approach to identify and analyze the details of the demised. With the evolution of digitalization, techniques like computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging can supplement or even partially replace traditional autopsy. Apart from the fact that this can be done both in living and dead individuals, the documentation and analysis and autopsy findings are investigator independent, objective and noninvasive, leading to qualitative improvement in the forensic investigation and precision of results. In forensic odontology, virtospy helps in facial reconstruction, bite-mark registration and analysis, lip print and rugae analysis, comparative ante mortem and post mortem analysis and patient identification and age and sex determination in virtual skeletons. With the advent of preventive dentistry leading to minimal restorations, correlative dental analysis is now showing a paradigm shift to digital analysis and virtual autopsy will assist in this aspect. 

Keywords: Autopsy; Computed Tomography; Magnetic Resonance Imaging; Virtopsy; Virtopsy Table.

  Objective: To evaluate the knowledge, awareness and necessity of forensic odontologyamong the students of AIMSTU university. Materials and Methods: A cross-sectional, institution-based survey was conducted among 200 undergraduate clinical years, dental students. Simple random sampling was done. Each participant was given a questionnaire. The questionnaire consisted of a set of 15 questions. Questions comprised of both yes or no and multiple choices. The answers received were tabulated and statistically analyzed. Results: All the participants were aware of forensic odontology, a branch in dentistry, yet overall results in current study shows only 52% graded as good, 39.5% of students as fair and 8.5% were graded as poor, depending on the number of correct answers. 78% of respondent’s feel the knowledge they attain is very less regarding the subject and therefore wants it to be incorporated in the syllabus. Whereas only 67% of students wish to attend the seminars and workshops related to forensic odontology. Conclusion: 13 dental schools in Malaysia but none of them are offering this course; hence Forensic odontology must be introduced into the BDS curriculum efficiently as a separate subject so that the students get aware and familiar with the required knowledge. Thus the nation needs more of these qualified forensic odontologists. 

Keywords: Awareness; Undergraduate Dental Students; Forensic Odontology; Knowledge; Malaysian BDS Curriculum; Survey.

  Human identification is the need of the hour in today’s time where terrorist activities, airplane crashes, natural disasters have become relatively common. In such situations, identification by conventional means like fingerprint and DNA analysis becomes difficult due to its lack of availability and exorbitant cost. In such situations, there is a need to employ a reasonably accurate and easy to use method. Cheiloscopy and Palatoscopy are gaining increasing popularity as methods for gender determination since they are cost effective and no sophisticated armamentarium is required. In the present study, lip prints and palatal rugae patterns of 200 subjects in the age range of 10 to 70 years were recorded and analysed to evaluate their efficacy in gender determination. It was found that, overall; chelioscopy was more accurate in gender determination as compared to Palatoscopy. 

Keywords: Cheiloscopy; Palatoscopy; Lip Prints; Palatal Rugae.

 Age estimation is one of the most important aspects of Forensic Medicine and Dentistry. Tooth development is a useful measure of age since it represents a series of recognizable events that occur in the same sequence. Skeletal maturation has been utilized for age estimation by identifying levels of ossification of individual bones from radiographs. 

Aims and Objectives: The aim of the present study was to assess the Dental Age (DA) of Indian children and to compare with the Skeletal Age (SA). Material and Methods: Data of the estimated DA and SA of 164 individuals was retrospectively analyzed and based on it the individuals were divided into two groups; Group A had 139 individuals (with availability of proof of chronological age) and Group B had 25 individuals (with no evidence of proof of date of birth). DA estimation was done for all individuals using Dr. Dinkar’s Qualitative and Quantitative Analysis. The skeletal age was provided by the experts of Forensic Medicine. Mean absolute error (MAE) was calculated for DA and SA. The statistical analysis was carried out separately for both the groups using Students – t test and Pearson’s Correlation Coefficient test. 

Results: MAE for DA and SA was less than 1 year for most of the age groups in Group A. Estimated DA and SA of all the individuals were in good agreement with their chronological age. Good correlation was seen for both age groups between DA and SA. The results of our study showed Dr. Dinkar’s method to be accurate upto 5.15 months of the chronological age.

Keywords: Dental Age Estimation; Skeletal Age Estimation; Dr Dinkar’s Qualitative and Quantitative Method; Forensic Odontology.