A Study Among General Dental Practitioners, Orthodontists and Forensic Odontologists Regarding Forensic Identification in Orthodontic Context

The process of dental identification involves comparing the dentition of the deceased with the latest dental records of presumed dead. It may become challenging to identify an individual whose orthodontic treatment records are untraceable for any reason. In such instances the dentition of the dead who underwent orthodontic treatment may need to be compared with the records before orthodontic treatment. The goal of this study was to determine the accuracy of matching pre and post-orthodontic treatment casts among general dental practitioners (GDPs), orthodontists, and forensic odontologists. Pre and post-orthodontic treatment dental casts from ten patients were used in this study. Pre-orthodontic maxillary and mandibular dental casts were separated from post-orthodontic maxillary and mandibular dental casts. A total of fifteen assessors comprising five orthodontists, five forensic odontologists and five GDPs compared and matched the pre and post-orthodontic dental cast pairs. Results revealed higher correct matches among forensic odontologists (94%) as compared to orthodontists (88%) followed by GDPs (80%). Among the parameters, ‘specific features in the dentition’ were most successful at correct identification. Orthodontic therapy causes morphometric changes in the dentition, which can make comparative identification difficult. Unique features in the dentition present before orthodontic treatment and persistent even after orthodontic treatment such as peculiar attrition facets, etc. can prove highly accurate in the identification

Establishing a causal link between the human papilloma virus and oral fibromas

Fibroma, a benign tumour of fibrous connective tissue, can be seen as a reactive connective tissue hyperplasia in response to trauma and irritation. They typically have a firm consistency, are nodular and asymptomatic, have a colour that is similar to the mucosa, a sessile base, a smooth surface, and are situated in the buccal mucosa along the line of occlusion, tongue, and lip mucosa. We retrospectively investigated total 79 cases and intriguingly, 41 cases were not associated with any history or clinical evidence of chronic trauma of dental origin suggesting different pathogenesis mechanism. Out of 79 cases of oral fibroma, 18 showed evidence of koilocytes in the overlying epithelium with 14 cases not associated with history of any trauma. This might suggest the cause and effect relationship between HPV and oral fibromas, however, the possibility of secondary infection in already existing fibroma can be considered. This intriguing finding prompt us to propose a novel hypothesis explaining the role of human papilloma virus in the pathogenesis of fibroma