Original ArticleDiversity in dental clinical characteristics in Portuguese and Spanish military populationsEstudio comparativo de la diversidad de las características clínicas dentales en poblaciones militares de Portugal y España☆
Introduction
Human identification requires determination of the particular characteristics or set of qualities that distinguish one person from all others and make them unique. All individuals are born with an identity and have the right to die with it. Establishing identity also raises a series of legal issues (inheritance, custody or life insurance) and issues of a psychological nature for families and friends of the deceased (the agony of waiting and prolonged unsuccessful attempts at identification), without also forgetting the social and political implications.1, 2
Dental examination is one of the most important identification methods available. The enormous variety of individualising characteristics that the human teeth and jaws provide us with is of inestimable value for establishing a subject's identity as, starting from a closed population of individuals, just one of these characteristics can confirm the identity of an individual or allow them to be excluded.3
Dental identification is successfully achieved when the comparison between ante-mortem and post-mortem dental records reveals a significant match and the absence of absolute discrepancies, which ensures a considerable degree of certainty with regard to the identity of the subject based on available dental records.4 If complete clinical data are provided, forensic dentists can conclude the dental identification in a short period of time and with a high degree of certainty, due to the inherent variability and uniqueness of the human dentition.5 Despite this, forensic dentists are often required to establish the probability of identification in the courts, as is done in forensic genetics, where estimating the probability of identification or likelihood ratio is possible due to the fact that we know the frequencies of the various gene markers in specific populations.6
However, the lack of epidemiological data on the frequency distribution of the various clinical situations (diseases and treatments) for each tooth and in populations of different origin makes it difficult to estimate probabilities in dental identification. With the aim of contributing to estimation of the probabilities of diversity patterns, various authors have been carrying out studies on the frequencies of dental treatment and dental disease patterns in civil and military populations.5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15 For military forces involved in peace or war missions, human identification is of particular importance. Because they are often exposed to extreme risk situations, it is more likely that military personnel will require identification compared to the civilian population.1, 16 It is for this reason that specific protocols have been developed to regulate the technical procedures for identifying victims in the armed forces.17, 18
Comparisons of dental data from military personnel from different countries can determine whether these populations are distinguishable based on their dental characteristics for forensic identification purposes. In this study, we determined the differences and similarities in the dental characteristics of a Spanish and Portuguese military population sample. The main aim of this study was to identify dental characteristics that could be useful for differentiating these populations in a forensic analysis for the purpose of human identification.
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Material and methods
The data analysed came from a sample of 5136 individuals working as professional soldiers in the Portuguese and Spanish armed forces. The study was conducted in accordance with the personal data protection laws and the international recommendations of the World Medical Association for clinical research, as set out in the Declaration of Helsinki. The research and data collection was carried out with the authorisation of the Ethics Committee of the Hospital Militar D. Pedro V in Oporto (Portugal)
Results
The population sample studied consisted of 68.1% Spanish soldiers and 31.9% Portuguese soldiers. Overall, 86.6% were male (88.1% in the Spanish sample and 83.4% in the Portuguese sample) and 13.4% female (11.9% of the Spanish and 16.6% of the Portuguese). Although significant differences were detected in the proportions of males and females (p = 0.000), the difference between nationalities was not statistically significant.
In terms of distribution by age group, the largest in both nationalities
Discussion
The samples analysed are representative of the study populations. Therefore, the results can be extrapolated to the entire population of Portuguese and Spanish military personnel. The proportion of males and females was similar in the two population samples, which in our opinion justified combining the Portuguese and Spanish samples for the concordance analysis (Table 2) and the principal component analysis (Table 3).
There were considerable similarities between the two population samples.
Conclusions
The two populations compared were similar in terms of the proportion of males and females and the general state of dental health. The concordance analysis showed that the correlations between the contralateral teeth were significantly higher than between the opposing teeth in both populations. In addition, elements with discriminatory potential were identified in both populations. This study determined similarities and differences in dental condition which can be applied as an auxiliary method
Conflict of interests
We confirm that there are no known conflicts of interests associated with this publication. No financial support was received for carrying out this work that might have influenced its outcome.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to sincerely thank Pedro Couto for his contribution in the improvement of the manuscript, as well as all the personnel of the Portuguese Military Hospital, including the nurses Manuela, Gabriela and Neiva, with special mention to Lieutenant Dr Joaquim Pinheiro and Dr Manuela Pinheiro for their support, without which this work would not have been possible.
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Please cite this article as: Guimarães MI, Martínez Chicón J, Gonçalves J, Carneiro Sousa MJ, Márquez Ruiz AB, Valenzuela Garach A. Estudio comparativo de la diversidad de las características clínicas dentales en poblaciones militares de Portugal y España. Rev Esp Med Legal. 2018;44:99–107.