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Dr. Hall,
Hello! My name is Ashley, and I’m a college student who is currently working on a paper about certain kinds of forensic sciences and their credibility in court. In my paper, I am discussing the reliability of bite mark analysis when used as evidence to convict. While doing research, I came across your website and am now hopeful you could answer two questions for me:
1) Are teeth uniquely different? ( For example, if you had two patients whose teeth you have straightened, could you tell them apart from their x-rays or teeth impressions?)
2) How often/fast can teeth move? (For example, if a criminal purposely removed a tooth or their teeth were shifted in a confrontation, how long would it take before their teeth had shifted noticeably?)
I hope to hear back from you. Your knowledge on dentistry could really help me.
Good wishes and thanks,
~Ashley
Ashley,
Thanks for your questions.
On the first – bites are really quite distinct. While I was in practice, if I ran across, say, a stray model in my lab, I could pretty easily tell which patient it was. X-rays would be a little different story – I would have to study them carefully to determine which patient they were. But with comparison x-rays it would be much easier. I could match up and say these two sets of x-rays are from the same person. But to translate the x-ray view into the clinical view could be harder.
The older a patient is, the more distinctive the bite is going to be. The teeth wear, get fillings or crowns, or other things that add to their distinctiveness as time goes on.
As far as how fast teeth move – in the context of bite marks – if a tooth were extracted yes, the teeth around it can move into that space. However, a bite mark would likely be mostly the front teeth, and front teeth will move much more slowly than back teeth. It could take months for you to see any significant lateral movement. Opposing teeth could also erupt further, and that movement would begin more quickly, maybe taking a couple of weeks to see significant movement. Back teeth can start to move in a couple of weeks because there are pressures on them from adjacent teeth, and teeth adjacent to a recently extracted back tooth will start to tip into that space in a couple of weeks.
I hope this is helpful. Good luck on your paper.
Dr. Hall
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About David A. Hall
Dr. David A. Hall was one of the first 40 accredited cosmetic dentists in the world. He practiced cosmetic dentistry in Iowa, and in 1990 earned his accreditation with the American Academy of Cosmetic Dentistry. He is now president of Infinity Dental Web, a company in Mesa, Arizona that does advanced internet marketing for dentists.