Ante-Mortem Dental Records and Forensic Significance

Every person in this world is unique, so is his identity and similarly his dentition as well. Human identification is a mainstay of civilization and the identification of unknown individuals always has been of paramount importance to the society. Criminal investigations, insurance settlements, military proceedings and legal certification of death are some of the areas of interest in person identification. The most reliable means of identification include fingerprints, dental comparisons and biologic methods such as DNA profiling. Forensic odontology plays an important role in the retrieval of evidence and identification, having a high degree of reliability and simplicity. Tooth, the hardest organ, because of their composition and anatomic location in the human body is resistant to various mechanical, thermal and chemical insults. With above considerations, it is clear that a dentist can be an important source for providing valuable data to answer questions that arise during a death investigation. However, due to the availability of fewer ante mortem records and higher incidence of disasters in our country, we need to keep dental records of all the patients which may be of immense value in unfortunate events. This review paper primarily aims at making general practitioners aware about the importance of keeping the various types of dental records and urging the concerned authorities to enforce a law making it mandatory to maintain dental records.