Isfahan University of Medical SciencesDental Research Journal1735-33279120120218Forensic odontology as an aid for victim identification in mass disasters910910ENAkhil A.ShankarDepartment of Oral Pathology, Y. M. T. Dental College and Hospital, Institutional Area, Sector 4, Kharghar, Navi Mumbai, India. akhil1904@hotmail.comRishikesh C.Dandekar20120218Madam,Forensic odontology essentially deals with criminalidentification by their dental records and aiding toget them to task. With a spike in the mass disastersoccurring in the modern world, the focus of thissubject has expanded to include the identificationof the victims of these natural or man-madecalamities. Although articles in the recent pastsuggest the importance of the forensic odontologistin the investigating team, only few have provided thedifficulties faced by the team and the actual figureswhere forensic odontologists have helped.The recent mayhem in Japan has redirected our focuson mass disasters. Various authors have emphasizedon the importance of forensic dentistry, and the rolea routine dental practitioner plays in maintenanceof dental records. These records provide valuableinformation as they serve to be ante-mortemrecords. [1] Naiman et al. have elaborately described the importance a dentist serves at a crime scene.[2]The importance of ante-mortem records for aiding inidentification, and also being a social responsibility ofthe dentist cannot be overlooked, as is also very aptlyexplained by Chandra Shekhar and Reddy.[3] Althoughthe present day scenario encourages and trains themind of the young dentist to rigidly follow theserules, records that have not been maintained over theyears provide a certain difficulty for identification.Highly skilled forensic dentists overcome thesedifficulties by evaluating the dental profile suggestingthe characteristics of the individual, likely to narrowthe search for possible identification.An analysis of ten mass disasters conducted byClark DH reflected the problems faced by the Britishforensic odontologists in the investigating team aswell as the success rates in these projects. He alsosuggests the employment of a forensic odontologistfrom each country through the FDI, which will helpin faster identification of individuals belonging tothe particular country and race.[4] Sarode et al. haveconducted a study providing insights into the actualforensic investigations using four mass disastersas their model. The results are suggestive of theodontology team aiding in identification of an averageof 4% of the victims. These cases are usually thegrossly destroyed cases wherein the facial featuresare not obvious and positive for identification. [5]Rai and Anand have also studied the use of forensicodontology in the identification cases of theearthquake of Sumatra in 2004, and have emphasizedon the role of the Thai Tsunami Victim identificationTeam (TTVI), as well as the protocols of internationaldisaster victim identification which mainly involvesfour steps of body tagging and bagging, fingerprinting, forensic pathology, and forensic dentistry.Their study also comments on the fact that 61% ofthe victims were identified by dental analysis.[6]The aforementioned details explain the immense useof a dentist in the forensic team, and also focus on theproblems encountered by the investigating team. Athorough knowledge of maintenance of ante-mortemrecords will provide great help in identification ofthe deceased reducing the work load of the victimidentification team.