Aplicabilidade da sobreposição de imagens na rugoscopia palatina.

Abstract

Applicability of image overlay in palatal rugoscopy. The palate roughness act as important individualizing structures with high destruction resistance, making possible to use them to identify humans in occasions where the more common recognize methods are not reliable. The research goals is to evaluate the palatoscopy sensitivity through overlap of the hard palate picture and plaster models images against the visual comparative method. It’s about a transversal study, with inductive approach, applying direct documentation in field. The sample consisted of thirty-three dental students from a public university, of both sexes, who met the study's eligibility criteria. An ante and post-mortem confrontation simulation was performed. To make the ante-mortem image bank, the upper dental arches were photographed with a digital camera using a standard technique. Post-mortem data were obtained by photographing plaster models with outlined wrinkles, from the correspondent samples. All digital images were randomly numbered. The identification process from the ante and post-mortem image bank was done by image overlay technique assisted by a computer software. For standardization of image size, incisor teeth were used as a reference. Two previously trained examiners performed the technique of overlapping images comparing the palatine wrinkles coincidence points, as well as visually comparing the physical models of plaster to intraoral photos. The result of positive identifications in the overlap of the photographs was 90%, while in the visual comparison was 100%. Palatal rugoscopy using the image overlay technique is easily applicable and effective for human identification, but visual comparison remains the best method.