Accuracy of dental registrations in forensic odontology among dental students

The registration of dental characteristics in forensic work is crucial to the identification procedure and because of this, standardised recordings of dental characteristics should be applied. In order to improve accuracy in identification it is important to evaluate the types of errors that are made during the different steps of the procedure. Attempting to identify the most common interindividual variations, twelve dental students made recordings on excised, macerated jaws at the Department of Forensic Medicine in Göteborg as a part of the course in Forensic Odontology. The most common error was incorrect judgement of the extent of single restorations. Furthermore, the students had difficulty in identifying premolars and molars, especially in the mandible, confusing the two groups of teeth. This study emphasises the importance of carefully re-examining the postmortem dental findings by an experienced forensic odontologist before comparing them with the antemortem data.