Elsevier

Archives of Oral Biology

Volume 87, March 2018, Pages 7-14
Archives of Oral Biology

Review
When forensic odontology met biochemistry: Multidisciplinary approach in forensic human identification

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.archoralbio.2017.12.001Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Determination of biological profile is a priority in forensic investigations.

  • Forensic Odontology and Biochemistry have improved their techniques towards this purpose.

  • A partnership between both discipline increases the chance to identify human remains.

Abstract

When human remains are found, the priority of the investigation is to ascertain the identity of the deceased. A positive identification is a key factor in providing closure for the family of the deceased; it is also required to issue the death certificate and therefore, to settle legal affairs. Moreover, it is difficult for any forensic investigation involving human remains to be solved without the determination of an identity. Therefore, personal identification is necessary for social, legal and forensic reasons.

In the last thirty years forensic odontology has experienced an important transformation, from primarily involving occasional dental identification into a broader role, contributing to the determination of the biological profile. In the same way, “DNA fingerprinting” has evolved not only in terms of improving its technology, but also in its application beyond the “classical”: helping with the estimation of sex, age and ancestry. As these two forensic disciplines have developed independently, their pathways have crossed several times through human identification operations, especially the ones that require a multidisciplinary approach. Thus, the aim of this review is to describe the contributions of both forensic odontology and molecular biology/biochemistry to human identification, demonstrating how a multidisciplinary approach can lead to a better and more efficient identification.

Introduction

When human remains are found, the first priority of the investigation is to ascertain the identity of the deceased; indeed, any forensic investigation involving human remains would be very difficult to solve without this information. Several methods and techniques from diverse fields, depending on the remains available, can be applied to human identification. The first step in the identification process is to build up a biological profile, which is a general description of the individual’s ancestry, sex, age-at-death and stature.

This information is the post-mortem data. The ante-mortem data is any information concerning the individual (provided by the missing person’s family or relatives) that could be used for identification. Comparisons between ante-mortem and post-mortem data can lead to a positive identification, presumptive identification or an exclusion.

A positive identification is scientifically proven, and is usually achieved through fingerprinting, dental data or DNA. In contrast, presumptive identification occurs when there are several consistencies between ante-mortem and post-mortem data, but no single factor alone justifies the identification (Thompson & Black, 2006). A presumptive identification may be based on personal effects, scars, tattoos, contextual evidence, testimony recognition or facial approximation. When the ante-mortem and post-mortem data are not consistent without explanation, that leads to an exclusion.

Dental identification is extremely useful when attempting to achieve a positive identification or exclusion, either in ordinary cases of identification or in disaster victim identification (DVI) scenarios, where forensic odontology offers an expeditious and scientific method of comparative identification. The field of forensic odontology has experienced a significant change in the last thirty years, from first involving forensic odontologists only occasionally in identification cases, to them playing a key role in the identification process (Senn & Stimson 2010). Nowadays, most medical examiner/coroner offices, as well as most police departments around the world, have forensic odontology consultants that are routinely involved in cases of dental identification, age estimation from dental structures, and patterned injuries that may have been created by teeth.

As new technologies advance, new techniques are emerging, and forensic odontology is incorporating these advances into research to be subsequently applied to casework. Recent technological developments are creating new opportunities to perform robust and validated scientific measurements. These technological advances have the potential to strongly increase the speed and efficacy of the criminal justice process. However, such benefits are only realized when quality assurance and control can be guaranteed, so findings can be used as forensic evidence in court (Kloosterman et al., 2015).

In current practice, DNA molecular analysis is an extremely useful tool in forensic investigations. DNA profiling is based on the short tandem repeats (STR) and aids in human identification from biological samples. In the last decade, because of the advances in the field of biochemistry, new biomarkers have been studied and proposed for use in forensic identification (Dumache, Ciocan, Muresan, & Enache, 2016). Likewise, the current trend is to apply biochemical methodologies to determine the biological profile: sex, age and ancestry (Cloos and Fledelius, 2000, Murakami et al., 2000; Witas, Tomczyk, Jedrychowska-Danska, Chaubey, & Ploszaj, 2013). This article aims to review the methods and techniques that can be applied to teeth and oral structures to identify the deceased, from the reconstruction of a biological profile to the ante-mortem and post-mortem comparison of dental data. While some of these techniques can also be applied to the living, there are certain techniques that are applicable only to the dead. Reviewed here are forensic odontology methods as well as biochemical techniques applied to dental structures.

Section snippets

Forensic odontology and biochemical methods applied to biological profile reconstruction

In human identification cases, a biological profile must be reconstructed from identifiers in bones and teeth. Forensic anthropology offers a great number of biological profile identifiers to estimate ancestry, sex, age, stature and, in certain cases, pathology. Forensic odontologists in particular, through examination of teeth and oral structures, can provide information for several characteristics of the individual such as age, ancestry, geographical origin, sex, occupation, habits and past

Age estimation

A basic step in biological profile reconstruction is to estimate the age-at-death of the unknown. Age estimation can be inferred by a variety of different approaches, the selection of the methods and techniques to be used to estimate age depends on the conditions of the remains as well as their applicability to the age category of the individual.

Personal identification

Personal identification of the deceased is necessary for social, legal and forensic reasons. A positive identification is a key factor for the grieving process, because it can help in understanding and acceptance of the loss, contributing to closure. In addition, the death certificate, issued when a positive identification is established, is required to settle legal affairs such as debt payment, life insurances, remarriage or child custody. Moreover, criminal investigation is difficult to carry

Conclusions

The first step in the identification process is to build up a biological profile of the unknown, followed by a comparison between the ante-mortem data collected and the post-mortem data obtained from the study of the remains. Fingerprinting, dental record comparison and DNA matching are the scientific methods to use to achieve a positive identification.

The examination of teeth and oral structures can provide several identified characteristics of the individual contributing to the reconstruction

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