Patterns of Missing, Filled and Unrestored Teeth as a Simple Tool for Personal Identification

Every human has an identity in life, therefore, society has the duty to preserve this identity beyond life.1 Sometimes bodies of victims of natural or man-made disasters may be distorted to such an extent that identification by family members is neither desirable nor reliable.2 Teeth survive most post mortem events, have unique and identifying anatomic features and may contain custom restorations. Thus they are very useful for human identification in cases of mass disasters, fires, airplane crashes etc., where soft tissues have been destroyed beyond recognition.3,4 Dental evidence can serve as antemortem records in various forms like radiographs, photographs, dental casts, treatment summary etc.3,4 Dental radiographs may not be done for every patient, whereas preparing and storing dental casts for each patient may be cumbersome Corresponding Author: Dr. Garima Jain, Department of Oral Pathology and Microbiology, A. B. Shetty Memorial Institute of Dental Sciences, Deralakatte, Mangalore 575 018, Karnataka, India. Phone: +91-7411161776. E-mail: [email protected] ABSTRACT