A review on heavy metal profiling from teeth for forensic purposes

Abstract

Heavy metal profile from teeth are utilized in various discipline of sciences such as
medical, environment, geology, and anthropology to indicate individual’s health status, risk of
exposure to harmful environments, and to estimate age and region of certain artifacts or human
skeletal remains. The elements profile from teeth are also studied in the field of forensic
science, in cases where skeletal remains are found, with the objective to provide information
about the origin of species, age, gender, and provenance, and to ultimately narrow down the
remainsto the level of individualization, if possible. However, there are number of variables
which affect the distribution of heavy metals in teeth- for instance: types of teeth (e.g. incisor
and canine), region or part of teeth (e.g. crown and root), and different method of analysis
employed. And due to this influence of variables, it becomes difficult to compare and interpret
results. Thus this review seeks to find a direction (though there are no particular way), at least in
terms of similar or contradictory reported results, and to find which variables (heavy metals)
contributes more to the variance in a particular dataset, or which heavy metals are more
significant for estimating various parameters that an analyst wishes to observe. The present
article also highlights the application of heavy metal profiling in forensic cases as and when the
exhibits are received in forensic laboratories.