The use of computed tomography (CT) to estimate age in the 2009 Victorian Bushfire Victims: a case report

The development of new imaging technologies is beginning to have an impact upon medico-legal death investigation in an increasing number of jurisdictions. Computed tomography (CT) is an imaging modality which is able to provide information to investigators without the need for a physically invasive autopsy in certain circumstances. The use of post-mortem CT as an aid to the identification of the victims of the Black Saturday bushfires is discussed with particular reference to dental age estimation. A case report is presented which demonstrates the ability of this imaging modality to separate individuals based upon dental development. Whilst CT is not yet able to adequately discriminate between differing restoration types and shapes, and therefore cannot be used for dental identification in the classic sense, the ability of this imaging modality to assess dental and skeletal development for the purpose of age estimation is valid.