ABSTRACT
Teeth are an excellent material in living and non-living populations for anthropological and forensic investigations as they are the hardest and chemically most stable tissues of the body. The dentition used in gender determination has been explored, as they exhibit the least turnover of natural structure and are readily accessible for examination as they are resistant to various insults. Our aim was to determine and evaluate the usefulness of Intercanine, Intermolar arch width for gender determination and for ethnicity difference of the people living in Uttrakhand and to validate its use as a forensic tool. Methods: 100 subjects were selected and impressions were made for maxillary arch with alginate. Study models were made and analysed with digital Vernier calliper. Results: The mean Inter canine width and the mean intermolar width were higher in males than females and the differnces were highly significant statistically [P < 0.008].On comparing between Punjabi and native population of Uttarakhand ,the ICD & IMD values were higher in Punjabi population [P < 0.001]. Conclusion: Therefore , we can conclude that the Intercanine and intermolar widths are useful in determining the gender/ ethnicity of the population.
ABSTRACT
Introduction: Age estimation has always been a crucial concern in permissible and scandalous investigations for establishing one’s identity. Assessment of chronological age of an individual by dental hard tissues is an important specialty in the turf of forensics especially in enigmatic conditions including mass disasters and festering postmortem residues. Teeth bestowing the properties of hardness, resilience prove to be the reliable material for age estimation in the identification of the unknown. Translucency in root dentin is considered to be one of the best criteria for estimation or assessment of dental age. Objectives: The present investigation evaluates and compares the effectiveness of conventional, stereomicroscopic and digital methods for age estimation by measuring root dentin translucency & concluding the best method among them. Methods: A total of 30 permanent teeth of the age group 21- 80 years were sectionioned longitudinally of thickness 250µm & translucency in root dentin was calculated using conventional, stereomicroscopic & digital methods and was compared. Results: There was no statistically considerable difference (p=0.584) observed in translucency length obtained by the three methods. Linear regression equations derived from the three methods revealed most accurate method as digital followed by conventional and stereomicroscopic to assess age. The digital method is statistically significant with highest accuracy allowing better visualization, easy to use and less time consuming. Conclusion: Taking into consideration the benefits, the present study recommends the use of digital method to assess translucency for age estimation.