Dental characteristics of forensic importance in twin siblings

The current study was conducted for evaluation of various dental & paradental parameters of forensic odontologic importance in determining identity of both identical twins & non-identical twins. The need for this study emerges as very few studies have been carried out in forensic & biometrics & there is lack of sufficient data on forensic odontologic aspect of the twins; thereby creating ambiguity between similarities & differences of these characteristics in identical & non-identical twin population. The uniqueness of fingerprints in twins is established, however, no study till date has reported uniqueness of lip prints, bite marks & palatal ruggae in twins.The present study is the first research in literature which is exclusively carried out on dental features of identical & non-dentical twins & study consisted of 3 pairs of monochorionic twins, 4 pairs of twins that were reared apart & 3 pairs of dizygous twins that exhibited mirror imaging; thereby variation in the dental traits among these twins is also noted. The results of the work concluded that lip prints & palatal rugae can be used effectively as individual identification tool in forensic odontology.