A survey of the incidence of missing anterior teeth: potential value in bite mark analysis.
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%).
Kouble
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Department of Oral Pathology, School of Clinical Dentistry, The University of Sheffield, Claremont Crescent, Sheffield S10 2TA, UK.
Craig
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GT
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D017677:Age Distribution; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001734:Bites, Human / Q000473:pathology*; D005260:Female; D005553:Forensic Dentistry / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D017678:Sex Distribution; D016388:Tooth Loss / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000473:pathology; D006113:United Kingdom / Q000453:epidemiology