Dentist streamlines dental record ID system

The Yomiuri Shimbun

Inspired by her father's painstaking efforts to identify victims of a 1985 Japan Airlines crash, a dentist in Takasaki, Gunma Prefecture, has spearheaded the development of a new computerized system to speed up the identification of crime and accident victims through dental records.

Eiko Kosuge, 38, remembers how her father, police dentist Mizuo Shinohara, worked to identify victims of the JAL crash that claimed the lives of 520 passengers and crew on Osutaka Ridge in the prefecture.

The new computerized dental identification system is expected to significantly speed up the process of identifying bodies--work her father did manually.

The system stores digital X-ray photos of teeth in a database, to be compared with dental images from unidentified bodies for identification.

Bodies in the 1985 accident were identified by visually comparing X-rays of teeth found at the crash site with dental X-rays of the victims collected from dentists across the nation.

As a general-practice dentist in Takasaki who also worked for the police, Shinohara carried out many such comparisons. Kosuge said her father confirmed the identity of singer Kyu Sakamoto, one of the crash victims.

Shinohara passed away suddenly this year at age 64. Kosuge said her father often told her that his work on the crash was a daunting task but identifying victims as soon as possible was what dentists could do for the bereaved families.

Kosuge, who enrolled in dental college to succeed her father, began to study the identification system in 1999 after she graduated.

As dental X-ray photos are taken from various angles and often have distortion, it was considered difficult to compare them automatically.

These problems were solved with the cooperation of Tohoku University Prof. Takafumi Aoki, 45, an information technology expert who studies methods of detecting similarities by automatically correcting image distortion.

Kosuge's system, using Aoki's ideas, was completed in 2006.

The system is effective for speeding up the identification of badly damaged bodies in large disasters. It is also useful in dealing with unidentified bodies in other circumstances, including criminal investigations, according to Kosuge.

The system attracted attention at a national convention of police dentists last year.

The Japan Dental Association is making preparations to use the system on a trial basis, aiming at putting it into practical use in collaboration with the Japanese Society of Forensic Dental Science and other organizations.

Kosuge said if the system is adopted, the process of identifying bodies would become significantly more efficient. "If we can identify bodies quickly, we'll be able to return them to their families sooner. I think it's an important mission," she said.