Medical odonto-dental identification in telemedicine: forensic and ethical aspects

Identity and biological individuality of a person may be terms which are ambiguous, difficult to define and demonstrate, but they also have concrete and objevtive valency when subjected to legal medicine Telemedicine involves the use of electronic communication services between the physician and the patient who are based in different locations. It is an adaptable instrument that can also be applied in anthropology. Identifying someone using dental records and files, implies the existence of an infrastructure for storage and transmission of medical data by the dental practitioner. The purpose of this paper is to expose the usefulness of the odonto-dental forensic identification that could be obtained through telemedicine. Several aspects with increased utility in odonto-dental identification (dental abnormalities, dental procedures) will be presented and the medical-legal and ethical aspects of the use of telemedicine in odonto-dentistry with implications including in legal medicine will be briefly discussed.