Aurora Valenzuela

Background/Objectives: The estimation of age in skeletal remains is particularly challenging in adults due to the reduction in reliable morphological indicators with age. One valuable marker for this purpose is root translucency, either alone or in combination with other parameters. The aim of this systematic review was to evaluate the accuracy of root translucency as a marker for estimating age-at-death in adults while assessing its reliability, limitations, and practical utility in forensic scenarios. Methods: A systematic review of the literature was conducted by synthesizing the scientific evidence available in PubMed, Web of Science, Scopus, SciELO, and Google Scholar. Results: Thirteen articles published between 2015 and 2025 in indexed journals were selected. The evaluated methods were more accurate in middle-aged groups (mean errors lower than 10 years), with a tendency to overestimate age in young adults and underestimate it in older individuals. The impact of the trajectory effect (i.e., that estimation errors increase with age) could be reduced by employing Bayesian statistics in the analyses. Similarly, logarithmic regression offered better results in adults over 65 years of age. International databases appeared to be a promising alternative when population-specific information is unavailable, even when root translucency was the only age marker used. Conclusions: These new approaches, which increase the accuracy of the methods, need to be validated on larger and more diverse samples to determine their applicability to various forensic contexts and their ability to achieve acceptable results.

In recent decades, several methods based on biochemical and molecular changes caused by aging have been proposed to improve the accuracy of forensic age estimation. The present study aimed to measure changes in furosine and pentosidine, two markers of non-enzymatic glycation of proteins (NEGs), in human dentine and clavicle with aging, and to identify possible differences between turnover rates in different mineralized tissues. Furosine and pentosidine were quantified in 32 dentine samples from living donors between 14 and 80 years of age, and in a second group of samples consisting of a tooth and a piece of clavicle collected from the same cadaver (15 individuals aged 18 to 85 years). Furosine concentration was much higher than pentosidine concentration in the same tissue, although they were strongly correlated in both dentine and bone. A close relationship between furosine and/or pentosidine content and chronological age was found in both tissues (r > 0.93). Moreover, age estimation was more accurate when furosine or pentosidine content was determined in dentine, with specificity values for the tests higher than 82% in all age groups. In clavicle, furosine concentration and pentosidine concentration were much lower (2.6-fold and 3.1-fold, respectively) than in dentine from the same individuals. In conclusion, although the results show strong correlations between chronological age and furosine or pentosidine concentrations determined in mineralized tissues, there is still a need for further research with larger data sets, including patients with diabetes.

The aims of this study were twofold: (1) to measure parameters that contribute significantly to estimates of dental age, using a combination of classic methods and a computer-assisted image analysis procedure to avoid the bias inherent in observer subjectivity; and (2) to develop new mathematical regression models for age prediction according to postmortem interval. Two different populations were studied. Forty-three permanent teeth (Group I), extracted for valid clinical reasons, were taken from patients 25–79 years of age. The other population group (Group II) was composed of 37 healthy erupted permanent teeth obtained from human skeletal remains (age 22–82 years) with a postmortem interval ranging from 21 to 37 years. Morphologic age-related changes were investigated by measuring variables on intact and half-sectioned teeth. Multiple regression analyses were performed with age as the dependent variable for each sample source. In fresh extracted teeth, the variables that made the greatest contributions to predictions of age were dental attrition, dentin color, and translucency width, the latter measured with a computer-assisted image analysis method. In teeth from human skeletal remains, the variables that made the greatest contributions to age calculation were cementum apposition, pulp length measured by computer-assisted image analysis, dental attrition, root translucency, and dental color. We conclude by recommending different regression models to calculate age depending on the postmortem interval.

This article deals with the usefulness and limitations of dental identification methods of human burn victims of two buses accidents in Spain. The first accident happened in Bailen in 1996 and involved 28 badly burned Spanish victims. In the second, in Illescas in 1997, 8 Japanese and 2 Spanish victims lost their lives. In both accidents, postmortem forensic procedures for identification were used, including external and internal examination, routine photographs, and dental examination. Dental identification was established in 57% of the cases in the Bailen accident and 80% in the Illescas accident. The success rate of dental identification varies considerably depending on the nature of the accident, the nationality and country of residence of the victims, the incidence of dental treatment, the availability of adequate dental records, and the degree of dental injuries. A discussion of procedures and methods for identification recommended when dealing with burn victims is included.