Root canal obturation- an important tool for forensic identification

Background: Forensic Odontology is a vital component of forensic science and one branch involves the application of dental science to the identification of unknown human remains. The aim of this study was to investigate whether endodontic obturation radiographs have a potential aid for forensic identification. Methods: Thirty periapical radiographs of patients having endodontic treatment of mandibular left first molars with three canals were selected randomly from the data bank of the digital X- ray system. The post-operative radiographs were considered as an ante-mortem data “Set 1”. Ten radiographs from the thirty were reprinted, labelled from (A-J) and considered as a post-mortem data “Set 2”. This post-mortem group of 10 radiographs “Set 2” would be compared with the ante-mortem group of 30 radiographs comprising “Set 1”. These two sets of radiographs would be examined by 80 dentally trained personnel. The thirty radiographs comprising “Set 1” and the 10 radiographs comprising “Set 2” were provided to each of the examiners who were asked to match the individual post-mortem radiographs (“Set 2”) with the ante-mortem radiographs (“Set1”). Results: The result demonstrated that 73 examiners achieved a success rate of 100%. Conclusion: If post-mortem radiographs are accurate duplicates of endodontic obturated radiographs then the unique shape of obturation can be used for forensic identification.