Establishing the identity of a person may seem like an easy task; the person, or their friends or family, can simply be asked their name. In medicolegal cases, however, there are often reasons why people are either unable to give accurate answers or purposefully give inaccurate ones. In cases of death, a body may also be too disfigured due to trauma to allow for easy identification. Though sometimes difficult, identification remains a necessary task. Identification of an individual can be confirmed by several different methods. However when the number of victims increases, the forensic...

Growth factors are a class of natural biologic mediators which regulate key cellular events in tissue repair i.e. cell proliferation, chemotaxis (directed migration), differentiation and matrix synthesis via binding to specific cell surface receptors. The expression of various growth and differentiation factors following bone and soft tissue injury like what happens in a periodontal disease may regulate the repair and regeneration process. The capacity of these mitogenic growth factors to initiate a programmed cellular cascade that results in the induction of bone in a functionally conserved...

The traditional diagnostic methods as well as indices based on their results cannot detect the presence of active periodontal destruction nor do they have predictive value. These are only reliable to know the retrospective diagnosis of attachment loss. The recent research in periodontal diagnosis is aimed at identification of disease process that if allowed to proceed unaltered, will result in future breakdown. Recent immunocytochemically based approach has offered a new avenue in periodontal diagnostic research. The availability of complementary information on pathologically altered tissues...

Local drug delivery has gained wide acceptance as an adjunct to mechanical debridement for the treatment of chronic periodontitis. A variety of delivery vehicles have been utilized for intrapocket administration of antimicrobial agents with variable success. Varnishes, which accomplish a reservoir of drug on the tooth surface are one of the recently developed vehicles used to deliver antimicrobial agent such as chlorhexidine, being utilized for the treatment of periodontitis. They allow application of a sufficient dose of antimicrobial agent over a longer period of time. So, varnishes seem to...

Dental implants have paved the way for a shift in thought towards preservation of the remaining natural teeth.Over the past 30 years, implants have overshadowed the era of removable and fixed prosthesis. Periodontist play a pivotal role in implant dentistry around which all the branches of dentistry revolve. Periodontal bone loss, tooth extraction, and long term use of removable appliances typically result in advanced alveolar bone loss that prevents the placement of implants in an optimal prosthetic position. Fortunately, continuous innovations in surgical techniques and advances in the...

Oral lichen planus is most commonly asymptomatic and gingival lesions of lichen planus such as atrophic, erosive and desquamative lesions,were often found to co-exist with chronic marginal gingivitis. Whether these lesions are benign or malignant, early diagnosis and planned treatment is mandatory to check the menace at the earliest. The use of bio-resorbable membranes had been proposed to regenerate periodontal structures like alveolar bone, periodontal ligament and epithelium. However it has rarely been tried in the management of lichen planus of gingivae. Surgical managememnt of such cases...