Journal of Punjab Academy of Forensic Medicine & Toxicology

Teeth are most important tool in forensic odontology for identifying both living and deceased individual. With their capacity to withstand any kind of environmental scenario, it makes them a very dependable forensic tool. Among the tooth in the dentition, canine is considered as the tooth which is least susceptible to oral diseases and also can survive any natural calamities due to their labiolingual thickness and firm anchorage in the jaws which makes them withstand all the situations and dependable tool in forensics.

The study comprised of 80 subjects from South Indian population with 40 males and females in each study group in the age group of 17 – 30 years as canines erupt by this age, show less attrition and fixed intercanine distance. The study subjects were screened properly and after proper oral hygiene, alginate impressions of maxillary and mandibular arches were recorded and study models were fabricated followed by odontometric measurements was carried out. The mesio distal dimension of maxillary and mandibular canine were measured and thereby the inter canine distance of both arches were evaluated.

The mesiodistal dimension of canine in both maxillary and mandibular arches showed that male study group had a higher than the female counterpart.Comparing standard canine indices with males and females shows no statistically significant results except for maxillary left canine index. Standard canine index shows accuracy of maxillary total canine index is 47.5 % and mandibular total canine index is 50% with mandibular canine index having greater accuracy value and making it important in gender determination.

The present study concludes that canine index as an effective tool for gender determination and evaluating mesiodistal dimension of maxillary and mandibular canine is reliable, less expensive and helps in person identification even from mutilated dental remains.