Abstract
Dental methods are an important element of forensic age assessment of living persons. After the development of all the teeth, including third molars, is completed, degenerative characteristics can be used to assess age. The radiologically detectable reduction of the dental pulp cavity has been described as such a feature. We investigated the suitability of ultrahigh field 9.4 T ultrashort time echo (UTE) magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) for the evaluation of pulp cavity volume in relation to the total tooth volume in 4 extracted human teeth. The volume calculations were performed after semi-automatic segmentation by software AMIRA using the different intensities of the structures in the MRI dataset. The automatically selected intensity range was adjusted manually to the structures. The visual distinction of pulp and tooth structure was possible in all cases with in-plane resolution < 70 μm. Ratios of tooth/pulp volume were calculated, which could be suitable for age estimation procedures. Intensity shifts within the pulp were not always correctly assigned by the software in the course of segmentation. 9.4 T UTE-MRI technology is a forward-looking, radiation-free procedure that allows the volume of the dental pulp to be determined at high spatial resolution and is thus potentially a valuable instrument for the age assessment of living persons.
Highlights
Forensic age assessment can provide clarity in the case of missing or doubtful age information and contribute to the execution of constitutional proceedings
One such feature has long been known to be the reduction of the dental pulp due to secondary dentine formation [3, 7,8,9,10]
This so-called secondary dentine is added to the dentine facing the pulp, which reduces the volume of the pulp cavity during life
Summary
Forensic age assessment can provide clarity in the case of missing or doubtful age information and contribute to the execution of constitutional proceedings. Once tooth development is complete, only degenerative dental characteristics can be used for age assessment [2,3,4,5,6] One such feature has long been known to be the reduction of the dental pulp due to secondary dentine formation [3, 7,8,9,10]. The physiological background of secondary dentin formation is that odontoblasts continue to produce dentin continuously after the completion of tooth development [11,12,13]. The differentiation between tertiary and secondary dentine has so far only been possible histologically, which is why great importance must be attached to not determining the formation of secondary dentine on pathologically influenced teeth for the propose of forensic age assessment [19]. The feature seems to be independent, e.g., of orthodontic treatment [20]
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