Establish a person's identity can be a very complex process, one of the main objectives of the forensic sciences. The analysis of the teeth, fingerprints and DNA comparison, are probably the most used technics, allowing fast and secure identification processes. However, these techniques can not always be applied, in some cases, it is necessary to apply different and less known techniques. In this work, a systematic analysis of the shape and dimensions of the palatal rugae was performed. We analyzed 120 subjects of both sexes, between 15 to 20 years olds, fully dentated, and by calcorrugoscopy were determined the shape, size, number and position of the palatal rugae. The most prevalent palatal rugae shape was sinuous (43%) followed by curve (27%), line (15%), point (11%), and polymorphic varieties (4%). The average number was 12.27, being higher in male than female. The palatal rugae that were larger were the sinuous (mean 9.58 mm). 40% of the rugae were found in the E quadrant, followed by D (30%), the rest was distributed among the other regions. The analysis of the palatal rugae and their features can be used as a reliable guide to the forensic identification.

The increase in the number of surgical procedures in the mandibular region requires a new perspective into anatomical landmarks such as the mandibular canal and its imagenological aspect. The present study aimed to determine the prevalence of the alterations in the number of mandibular canals in digital panoramic images obtained from patients of a private radiological center of the Maule region. The study period was from March to December 2008. A total of 350 panoramic digital X-ray images were analyzed by examining them for hemi-mandibles (n = 700) and quantifying the alterations of the number of mandibular canal. There were 35 cases of bifurcations to the mandibular canal, corresponding to 5 % of the sample in the study. The obtained information indicates a major prevalence described by the literature, which reinforces the need of a larger study of the radiographic images of the mandibular canal, considering the difficult managing of a surgical complication on this anatomical structure.

SUMMARY: Loth & Henneberg (1996) described a simple morphological feature for sex determination by observing the flexure of the posterior margin of the mandibular ramus, at the level of the plane occlusal. The purpose of this study is to analyze the level of agreement for determining the sex by observing the parameters described by Loth and Henneberg, in ortopantomography of totally dentate Chilean young adults. This study is based on 188 files of ortopantomography acquired from the Department of Radiology of the Dental School of Universidad de Talca, Chile. In brief, our studies indicated that in the ortopantomography of females 63.25% (62-64.5%) was correctly sexed, whereas the prediction accuracy was only 48.25% (46.5-50%) for men. The success percentages were lower than those reported by Loth and Henneberg, which justifies the necessity to evaluate the methods of anthropological-forensic analysis that are used in our population.