Oral autopsy, procedure, and its utility

Abstract

ABSTRACTA postmortem examina????on is conducted to find out the cause of death, weapon responsible for injuries and age of injuries; postmortem interval along with establishing the iden????ty of the dead and finding other facts related to death. Usually, all these queries can be solved by doing a me????culous postmortem examina????on. In some cases when the injuries are in the buccal cavity dissec????on of the face and oral cavity may be required which is usually not done in rou????ne postmortem examina????on cases. Some????mes in decomposed bodies, mu????lated bodies, a vic????m of the disaster, or missing persons, visual iden????fica????on is not possible and iden????fica????on from fingerprints is not possible or seems difficult and even Iden????fica????on from DNA seems not possible or difficult, such situa????ons, iden????fica????on is possible by the study of teeth if the antemortem dental records of the deceased are available with the den????st or smiling photographs of the vic????ms are available. In such cases, when the muscles of the face are s????ff due to rigor mor????s and a complete dental examina????on is difficult, a buccal autopsy may be required for dental char????ng. The technique and benefits of the buccal autopsy will be discussed in the paper. It is also useful in inves????ga????ons of cases of negligence in dental treatment and anaesthesia. This review is conducted to highlight the procedure and importance of the buccal/oral autopsy in different scenarios as this is the most neglected field in forensic odontology and is usually limited to the iden????fica????on of the unknown person. This paper highlights the u????lity of the oral autopsy in different causes of death.