Imageries numériques tridimensionnelles : développement et intérêt criminalistique en odontologie médico-légale

Recent developments in 3D imaging for odontology, with the appearance of cone beam computed tomography (CBCT) and digital impressions, changed documentation in the dental surgery and as a result, the data available for forensic odontologists. However, until recently, this technology was not reliable or accurate enough to record good quality intra-oral impressions. Several systems appeared over a few years, and the combination of 3-D digital data from CBCT and intra-oral impressions has been improved. The use of three-dimensional digital imaging for non-invasive documentation of data and comparative analysis in forensic odontology has fallen a long way behind the progress of science in this field. This is pushing us to consider their practical applications in forensic odontology for non-invasive documentation of ante-mortem and post-mortem files, to highlight identification criteria, and their inclusion in three-dimensional analysis of bite marks. Finally, three-dimensional digital impressions and cone bean computed tomography have applications in estimative and comparative odontological identification. From now on, the first obvious forensic application of intra-oral scanners is their inclusion in three-dimensional analysis of bite marks.