MEDICOLEGAL ASPECTS OF POSTMORTEM PINK TEETH

While the phenomenon of pink teeth has been known since 1829, when it was first described by Bell, its application in forensic medicine has been limited. Recently, however, attention was again, focused on pink teeth in legal cases. The medico-legal implication was the use of pink teeth as a possible means of evaluating the cause of death. Pink teet h can occur during life and postmortem. Except for very few and poorly documented exceptions, they develop earliest after 1 to 2 weeks postm ortem. Their chemical analogy is seepage of hemoglobin or it's derivat es into the dentinal tubules. Prerequisites are hyperemia/congestion a nd erythrocyte extravasation of the pulp capillaries, furthermore auto lysis and a humid milieu. Therefore, they are most often associated wi th water immersion. The intensity of characteristics varies between di fferent cases and also between different teeth in an individual case. Since the ante-mortem prerequisites are non-specific and can be replac ed by certain postmortem conditions, there exist until now no specific correlation to the cause of death. The phenomenon is very often seen in victims of drowning where the head usually lies in a head-down posi tion. From this it can be assumed that pink teeth even if not identica l to postmortem lividity can, at least to some extent, be considered a s analogous. Since, there is no obvious connection between the occurre nce of pink teeth and the cause of death, it may be concluded that pin k teeth are not pathognomonic for a specific cause of death and this i s therefore an unspecific phenomenon.