Developing an educational training module in forensic odontology: A proposal for dental curriculum

A number of methods have been introduced in scientific literature to study the lip print and palatal rugae; still there is a need for more descriptive and self-explanatory methods. Awareness regarding practical knowledge of cheiloscopy and palatoscopy is ambiguous among dental professionals. In the present work, an effort was made to introduce an educational training module for dental professionals with a view to improving the data recording and interpretation methods. A computer aided statistical method has also been suggested, i.e., systematic stage-wise filtering to test the uniqueness of lip and palatal rugae patterns. In this study, dental professionals were asked to match random lip and palatal rugae patterns before and after training. Proportions of accurate matching pre- and post-training were then compared. A systematic stage-wise filtering method was used to prove the uniqueness of lip prints and palatal rugae in large samples. It was observed that the educational training module helped to improve the ability of dental professionals in identifying individuals based on lip prints and palatal rugae. Application of systematic stage-wise filtering technique eased the process of checking the uniqueness of patterns.