Pink teeth as post mortem indicator: A literature review

Abstract

Pink teeth in post mortem condition still become a controversion due to identification process of human body. Pink teeth could happen not only in post mortem condition, but can also found in human alive. Pink teeth is the coloring of the tooth part to pink without involving the structure of the email. Pink teeth in post mortem conditions have varying degrees of agility ranging from pink to dark red. Postmortem pink teeth are rarely found in conditions of death less than 4 weeks so that post mortem pink teeth condition usually perform on the body from exhumation process. Postmortem pink teeth can occur after physical trauma, accident, poisoning barbiturates and carbon monoxide, asphyxia, systemic disease, a result of external staining due to the decomposition process, and idiopathic. Those etiology lead damage to erythrocyte wall including hemoglobin and its derivative products such as porphyrins and hemosiderin that enter tubulus dentinalis. The pink colorization occure mostly in area of cemento enamel junction. From this a literature review, authors try to analyze pathology of post mortem pink teeth condition and its correlation with postmortem interval (time of death) and cause of death.