Resumen

MIRANDA TARRAGO, Josefa D. The dental record: A necessity at present.. Rev Cubana Estomatol [online]. 2006, vol.43, n.2. ISSN 0034-7507.

It is widely known that dental evidence and the medical history are useful and important for human identification in a range of forensic situations. Many years after a death occured, teeth are the best preserved organs of the body and the most valuable indicators of a person´s identity. Encouraged by the need of having a dental record in the country, we intended to design and present one. The requirement that dentists should be increasingly skilled to face a human identification process and to co-operate with their work to the successful outcome of this process constitutes an international demand. The use of dental information to identify unknown persons is an essential part of the response to massive disasters, which are more and more common nowadays. The working-out of good medical records is not enough to take full advantage of the collected data for identifying purposes, so it is indispensable to have a good dental record with its corresponding filing system.

Palabras clave : dental record; identity.