Journal of Forensic Pathology

An Overview of Forensic Considerations Related to Incinerated Human Dental Remains

Shabir Ahmad^{* *}Correspondence: Shabir Ahmad, Editorial Office, Journal of Forensic Pathology, United Kingdom, Email:

Author info »

Introduction

Teeth are the most durable parts of the human body and can last for many years after death while still being mostly intact. They are physiologically inert and include details about the physiological and pathological occurrences in the person's life that are preserved as markers in the hard tissues of the teeth. An individual's dentition may be altered in a more or less specific way by any therapeutic dental procedure in the form of restorations and prosthesis. The forensic dentist's job is to evaluate this biological and chemical data and use it to help identify an unidentified body.. It is currently one of the crime lab's fastest-growing areas, and law enforcement's reliance on it is only increasing. In China, there is an increasing requirement to ensure that digital evidence is accepted and admissible; the quality of the evaluation directly affects the social credibility of the outcome and further impairs the ability of judicial appraisal to serve litigation and advance judicial justice. Dental identifications of human remains have always been crucial in instances involving natural and man-made disasters, especially when there are large numbers of victims related to aviation mishaps.

The identification is crucial for legal, humanitarian, and religious grounds as well as for purposes of justice. According to some reports, the identification based on dental records results in a successful process and is still a preferred option. Dental remains are a well-known and dependable way to identify people. A comparison of the ante-mortem and postmortem dental records is necessary for dental identification. In order to prove identity, a comparative method of dental identification entails establishing with the maximum degree of certainty that the decedent's remains at the scene of death and the information in the ante-mortem dental records pertain to the same person. In other cases, despite the existence of high-quality dental records, the dental remains and telltale signs of previous dental work collected from the scene are indistinguishable. The forensic dentist builds a composite postmortem dental profile based on the visible dental features in the absence of ante-mortem information, which aids in focusing the search for antemortem information. In most cases, a post-mortem dental profile will reveal the deceased's age, ancestry, sex, and socioeconomic status.

A more typical reason for an odontological study to fall short is the absence of a presumptive identification or the inability to find dental or other ante-mortem data. In a large majority of cases, it is possible to identify the deceased based on their facial features, but there are some situations in which putrefaction, bodily harm, or tissue loss may make facial recognition impossible or unacceptable. The most precise means of identifying people in these situations is fingerprinting, which is the next step in the inquiry. However, it is only partially useful when dealing with deformed, burned, decomposing, or fractured bodies. Teeth and dental restorations, on the other hand, are incredibly fire-resistant. They still exhibit a number of their original traits, which are frequently distinctive and provide the opportunity for a reasonably precise and legal identification of such remains. Therefore, the forensic dentist's responsibility is to study the oral structures or skeletonized remains in order to describe the events in the person's life that may have been permanently documented in the teeth. With the use of dental records or other information that was at hand at the time, such information could, at best, lead to a positive identification. Because of their mineralized nature, which renders them resistant to environmental changes, teeth are important for identification.

They are often resistant to fires, alkalis, and even weak acids and are not altered by postmortem decomposition. Bombings, car accidents, aeroplane crashes, bombings, wrongful cremations, house fires, suicides, unlawful killings, and cremation of the victim's body have all been known to result in incineration events11. When a person has been burned to the point where just a few pieces of bone and teeth are left after the burn, the forensic odontologist is faced with a challenging task. The posterior teeth are given the most protection during fire occurrences, while the front teeth take the most damage in-vivo. Prior to the muscles contracting with increased heat and pulling back to expose the anterior dentition, the lips and cheeks initially offer some insulation. The lingual portion of the lower teeth receives some protection from the tongue as well. Additional heat defence for the roots is also provided by the alveolar bone and gingivae. Since most research has been conducted on extracted teeth, these findings should be taken into account. The duration of exposure, the presence of materials (other than tissues) in between the teeth and the fire, and the temperature change caused by fire-quenching agents are the factors that affect how fire affects teeth. Even while restoration materials and teeth are often resistant to deterioration, intense fire can significantly damage or destroy them. The burned teeth remains are smaller and very fragile, yet they still preserve part of their anatomical structure.

The chewing patterns or particular work habits might change the teeth, which are fragile and hard items. For instance, when seamstresses pass cotton through their teeth before threading needles, distinctive notches in the incisal margins are visible. Small nails or tingles are believed to be held in cobblers' lips before being tapped into a shoe's welt, and the passage of the nail through the incisal gap may also result in distinctive wear patterns. The vapours produced by the materials utilised are claimed to cause acidic demineralization of the anterior teeth in battery factory workers. All of these characteristics may provide some insight into who the mysterious individual is. It is important to meticulously map out and characterise all of the restorations in the mouth, including their size, design, material composition, the linings inserted behind them, and any other distinctive characteristics. Any one of these could be helpful in the identification process. The charred tooth remnants could be analysed using stereomicroscopy, histology, radiography, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, according to a thorough study of prior research (EDS). These techniques could be used to examine changes in the colour, the surface, and the microscopic structure of cementum, dentin, and enamel. In the event of inadvertent damage or fragmentation, taking photographs and making contemporaneous notes of the extra-oral and intra-oral discoveries would be prudent. The extraordinary brittleness of the teeth in cremated human remains is a circumstance that forensic scientists see quite regularly. This has grown to be a serious issue when trying to preserve the dentition for legal reasons. It is crucial to understand how delicate the remains are at any crime or accident site where there have been burned bodies. To preserve the tooth structures before any disturbances start the disintegration process, the presence of the forensic odontologist is frequently required. The extraordinary brittleness of the teeth in cremated human remains is a circumstance that forensic scientists see quite regularly. This has grown to be a serious issue when trying to preserve the dentition for legal reasons. It is crucial to understand how delicate the remains are at any crime or accident site where there have been burned bodies. To preserve the tooth structures before any disturbances start the disintegration process, the presence of the forensic odontologist is frequently required.

The colour changes that take place during combustion may help to forecast the degree of tissue fragility in oral tissues. In general, teeth that appear dark or burned are less fragile than teeth that appear to be "porcelain white." However, the fragmentation process starts in deciduous teeth at low temperatures even before the charring of the organic components takes place. In this case, it would be advisable to use a stabilisation approach routinely. The findings of a survey given to forensic anthropologists and forensic odontologists by Mincer et al. revealed that the most widely employed techniques were the application of cyanoacrylate glue or impregnation with a polyvinyl acetate solution. Numerous substances, including clear nail polish, hair spray, spray varnish for furniture, clear nail polish, quick-setting epoxy cement, polyvinyl acetate polymer in acetone, and self-curing clear dental acrylic resin, have been used for stabilisation in the lab. All compounds tested successfully fixed the burned teeth, but according to Mincer et al.16, cold cure acrylic spray or a runny combination (applied with a horsehair brush) is the preferred material for dental stabilisation since it is less expensive, more practical, and easier to use. According to research by Hill et al., during the recent Australian bushfires, wrapping the victims' heads after they had stabilised at the scene allowed for the evidence to be contained even if transportation caused the tooth structures to move farther. The investigator must take a methodical approach while working with any burnt dental remains in order to preserve the dentition during each stage of the evaluation of the incinerated remains and avoid losing potential dental evidence. Fire victim identification by forensic dentistry is frequently a difficult task. The identification of bodies that have been charred beyond recognition can be made easier with knowledge of burned human teeth and restorative material remnants. It is crucial to understand how severe heat affects dental tissues because this knowledge cannot be stressed. The teeth that are blackened and charred during the first stages of heating are more stable than the "porcelain white" teeth that are produced by prolonged exposure to high temperatures. A methodical approach is necessary during the recovery phase of a forensic dental inquiry as well as during the analysis that follows to avoid losing important data. Therefore, in addition to using some dental characteristics that are specific to each individual, it is also possible to identify human remains using the anatomical variations in their dentition and the changes made during dental treatment.