Evaluating dental student competency in forensic rugoscopy for human identification

Area of Science:

• Forensic Odontology
• Human Identification
• Dental Anatomy

Background:

• Rugoscopy is a validated forensic identification method.
• General dentists' limited forensic training can impact rugoscopy reliability.
• Assessing dental students' competency is crucial to bridge this gap.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate dental students' proficiency in recognizing and interpreting palatal rugae for forensic identification.
• To determine the accuracy and reliability of rugoscopy performed by future dental practitioners.
• To address the competency gap in forensic identification among general dental professionals.

Main Methods:

• Fifty-four final-year dental students acted as evaluators.
• Forty modified maxillary casts (teeth removed) were used for matching exercises.
• Test-retest reliability was assessed using prevalence-adjusted bias-adjusted kappa (PABAK).

Main Results:

• Mean accuracy for rugoscopy-based identification was 83.06% (±15.49%).
• Reliability scores ranged from substantial to almost perfect (74.07%–96.30%).
• Average matching time was 1.37 minutes per cast.

Conclusions:

• Trained dental students can achieve significant accuracy and reliability in palatal rugae identification.
• Dental students can serve as valuable assets in forensic identification, particularly when forensic odontologists are scarce.
• Standardized criteria are recommended to further enhance accuracy and reliability in rugoscopy.