Forensic odontology – broader than just identification

Nowadays, most people will associate forensic dentistry primarily with identification and bite mark analysis. These areas do indeed form the majority of an odontologist’s workload. There are, however, other aspects of the discipline that are just as important but perhaps less well known. These include cranio-facial trauma analysis, age estimation for both living and deceased individuals, dental manifestations of child abuse, dental malpractice investigations, as well as dental insurance fraud. Forensic odontology is an integral part of the medico-legal process. With this comes a responsibility borne by forensic odontology practitioners for the requisite education, qualifications and ongoing training. Courts and legal institutions now require that we have evidence-based research upon which we can rest our findings and conclusions. In addition to knowledge of the law, we have to have knowledge of human anatomy and its relationship to injury patterns and interpretation. Knowledge of bite mark patterns due to assault, trauma and sexual abuse, as well as child abuse injury manifestations, is also required, as is knowledge of assessment techniques used when the age of an individual is unknown. Finally, there is a need to have knowledge of human identification methods, principles and practices, as well as mass disaster identification procedures and protocols, and the ethical issues involved in the examination and management of dead bodies, and to have an understanding of human rights issues involved in war crimes investigations. All of these require thorough knowledge of cranio-facial anatomy, dental anatomy, dental and skeletal development, injury interpretation and medico-legal report writing. It is also important to have a good understanding of the law relating to the practice of dentistry, the coronial system, and the criminal justice system. As the majority of the forensic odontology caseload concerns the identification of unknown deceased individuals, most discussion in this article will concentrate on this. C L I N I C A L