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Updated: Sep 15, 2025

Precision of In Vivo Quantitative Tooth Wear Measurement Using Intra-Oral Scans
Published on: July 12, 2022
Charred or fragmented, yet comparable: Quantifying dental surface dissimilarity across teeth, jaws, and heat exposure
Anika Kofod Petersen1, Scheila Mânica2, Andrew Forgie3
1Department of Forensic Medicine, Aarhus University, Denmark.
None:
Accurate dental matching is essential for forensic identification, particularly in challenging cases involving dentitions with no dental work, incomplete dentitions or damaged remains. This study evaluates similarity scoring schemes for 3D dental data using three datasets: full jaws versus single teeth (DATA-A), and two collections of heat-traumatized teeth (DATA-B and DATA-C). The similarity scores are assessed for their ability to quantify tooth curvature (dis)similarity and distinguish matching from mismatching dental comparisons. The results demonstrate the effectiveness of the methods in handling dental fragmentation (ROC-AUCDATA-A = 0.899 (95 % CI 0.840-0.948) and heat trauma (ROC-AUC DATA-B = 0.996 (95 % CI 0.98-1.00); ROC-AUC DATA-C = 0.993 (95 % CI 0.980-1.00), and that they offer a robust tool for forensic applications.
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