The use of intraoral radiographs for identification of edentulous patients rehabilitated with implants.

The aims of this study were; i) to determine the accuracy by which two intra-oral radiographic examinations performed on patients with edentulous mandibles treated with dental implants can be matched. ii) to determine whether prosthodontic supra-construction is important for matching. iii) to investigate whether there is a difference between oral and maxilla-facial radiologists (OMR) and dental practitioners, not specialized in oral and maxillofacial radiology (NOMR), regarding their ability to match. The specific features of the radiographs used by the operators to acquire a match were also investigated. Intra-oral radiographic examinations from 59 patients were utilized. Radiographic examinations from 47 patients carried out at placement of the supra-construction and at subsequent follow-up examinations were used as "ante-mortem" and "post-mortem" records respectively. Examinations from 12 patients were added to the "post-mortem" records without "ante-mortem" records being available. The study was divided into two parts. In Part One all "ante"- and "post-mortem" records had the supra-construction masked and in Part Two it was visible. Seven dentists (4 OMR, 3 NOMR) were instructed to specify on what basis each matching was made on the confidence of a three-graded scale OMR had 93.2 % and 98.5 % accuracy in Parts One and Two respectively. NOMR had 63.8 % and 87.9 %. Bone anatomy was the most commonly used feature by OMR to obtain a match. For NOMR it was the appearance of the fixtures. OMR reported higher confidence in their ability to match the examinations. This study indicates that OMR could be a valuable resource in cases of identification where dental implants are a feature of the post-mortem dental records.