Charred or Fragmented, Yet Comparable: Quantifying Dental Surface Similarity Across Teeth, Jaws, and Heat Exposure

Accurate dental matching is essential for forensic identification, particularly in challenging cases involving dentitions with no dental work, incomplete dentitions or damaged remains. This study evaluates similarity scoring schemes for 3D dental data using three datasets: full jaws versus single teeth (DATA-A), and two collections of heat-traumatized teeth (DATA-B and DATA-C). The similarity scores are assessed for their ability to quantify curvature similarity and distinguish matching from mismatching dental comparisons. Results demonstrate the method’s effectiveness in handling dental fragmentation (ROC-AUC _DATA-A = 0.899 (95% CI 0.840 to 0.948) and heat trauma (ROC-AUC _DATA-B = 0.996 (95% CI 0.98 to 1.00); ROC-AUC _DATA-C = 0.993 (95% CI 0.980 to 1.00), offering a robust tool for forensic applications.