Denture marking for personal identification in forensic odontology: A narrative review

Abstract

Aim: In certain situations, other forensic aids fail to provide proper personal identification such as changes after death, tissue injury trauma, burns, and insufficiency of fingerprint evidence. Dental identification plays a crucial role in this aspect. However, in edentulous patients, who do not possess teeth and the alveolar bone resorbs very fast, denture marking is a reliable aid for easy identification. This review was carried out to investigate how many methods of denture marking are listed in the literature for personal identification to date and which method is the most reliable?Materials and Methods: Following PRISMA principles, a search of the published literature was conducted electronically in PubMed/Medline, ResearchGate, Google Scholar, and Scopus databases, without the publication year limitation using keywords such as (“Denture marking,” OR “Denture labelling”) AND (“Prosthesis”), AND (“Personal identification”), AND (“Forensic science” OR “Forensic odontology”). A manual search of all related journals and reference lists of the relevant articles was also performed. Results: The database search yielded a total of 140 articles; out of which 45 relevant articles were selected describing 10 surface denture marking methods and 20 inclusion denture marking methods. Each method is enclosed with a few of its advantages and disadvantages. Conclusion: From this research, it can be concluded that at present, 30 denture marking methods for personal identification have been reported in the literature, but it cannot be stated definitely which method is the most reliable, as the strengths and weaknesses of each method supersede each other. Robust research and a number of population-based studies are required in this context.