Usefulness of Forensic Dental Symbols© and Dental Encoder© database in forensic odontology.

A new universal graphic dental system, Forensic Dental Symbols (c), has been created to provide precision in the construction of dental records, improve standardization, and increase efficiency in dental identification procedures. Two hundred and thirty-four different graphic symbols representing the most frequent clinical status for each tooth were designed. Symbols can be then converted to a typographic font and then are ready to use in any computer. For the appropriate use, manipulation, and storage of dental information generated by the Forensic Dental Symbols (c), Dental Encoder (c) database has been created. The database contains all the information required by INTERPOL Disaster Victim Identification (DVI)-dental-forms. To explore the possibilities that Dental Encoder (c) offers, an antemortem dental database from a Spanish population of 3920 military personnel had been constructed. Data generated by Dental Encoder (c) were classified into sex and age groups. The program can perform an automatic search of the database for cases that match a selected clinical status presented in a single tooth or a combination of situations for several teeth. Moreover, Dental Encoder (c) allows information to be printed on INTERPOL DVI-dental-forms, or the inclusion of any completed form into any document, technical report, or identification of dental report.