A survey of the incidence of missing anterior teeth: Potential value in bite mark analysis

✍ Scribed by R.F. Kouble; G.T. Craig

• Book ID: 104092055
• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 2007
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 206 KB
• Volume: 47
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1355-0306
• DOI: 10.1016/j.scijus.2006.05.001

✦ Synopsis

Bite mark analysis involves comparison of individual dental characteristics between a dentition and the bite injury. A bite mark injury may result from sexual assault, or physical assault, and defensive injuries, and as such can be used to link a suspect to a victim or vice versa. Missing teeth are one of the characteristics that could implicate or exclude a suspected biter. However frequency data for use by forensic odontologists can only be collated from epidemiological studies. Therefore an audit was undertaken of missing anterior teeth in adult patients (n = 1010) attending for treatment, gathering data that could be more relevant to odontology.

One in five of the sample presented with missing teeth that were either replaced with a denture (11%), not replaced (6%) or missing with the gap closed (2%).