Dental mapractice litigance in the city of São Paulo (SP), Brazil

The relationship between patients and dentists today is more worn and less based on trust, which can lead to high rates of lawsuits related to civil liability and dental malpractice. Aim: verify if there has been an increase in the number of lawsuits related to questioned dental treatments, and against dentists registered in the city of São Paulo (SP), Brazil, from 2012 to 2017. Methods: We outlined an overview based on the list from the São Paulo Council of Dentistry containing 30,238 registered dentists in the city of São Paulo, and searched for lawsuits on the public base of the São Paulo State Court's. Results: The search, after the inclusion and exclusion criteria, found 247 lawsuits, with dental implants as the most involved specialty. The total indemnities requested ranged from R$ 227.42 to R$ 937,000.00, but no indemnity granted exceeded the amount of R$ 100,000.00. Conclusion: According to the analysis of cases, there is a progressive increase in the number of civil liability lawsuits against dentists involving dental malpractice litigance

Frontal sinuses as tools for human identification: a systematic review of imaging methods.

The frontal sinuses are potential evidences for human identification because of the inherent distinctiveness of their morphology. Over the last decades, several techniques emerged to enable the visualization and analysis of the frontal sinuses via bi- and three-dimensional imaging. This systematic review aimed to compile different methodological approaches found in the scientific literature to contribute to human identification. Three examiners revisited the scientific literature in order to find imaging techniques for the visualization of the frontal sinuses applied to human identification. The standard search strings built-up from a PICO question identified 404 unique articles in the following databases Medline/Pubmed, Web of Science, Scopus, Lilacs and Scielo. Based on eligibility criteria applied during title, abstract and full-text reading, the sample reduced to 19 articles. The articles were published between 1987 and 2019 by research groups from 10 different countries. Computed tomography was used in 37% of the techniques, while the remaining (63%) techniques used skull radiographs. The techniques were highly heterogeneous and varied between metric analysis, direct image superimposition and morphology code-based systems. The authors considered their techniques useful for human identification and reported accuracy rates from 13 to 100%. Most of the studies revealed low risk of bias. More advantages were related with the techniques based on direct image superimpositions and three-dimensional visualization. Forensic experts must be aware of the use of frontal sinuses for human identification, especially when three-dimensional images are available as ante-mortem and post-mortem evidences for superimposition and comparison.

Mapeamento das revistas científicas nacionais e internacionais e suas produções na área da odontologia legal / Mapping of nationals and internationals scientific journals and productions in the area of Forensic Dentistry

Publicações periódicas de artigos científico-acadêmicos buscam a transferência de informação e construção do conhecimento de alta qualidade. A Odontologia Legal, apesar do amplo campo de atuação profissional, envolve vários temas referentes à legislação, bem como especificidades locais, questões essas que, muitas vezes, dificultam a publicação em revistas científicas com alto fator de impacto. Visto isso, o presente estudo objetivou mapear as revistas científicas nacionais e internacionais que apresentem publicações na área da Odontologia Legal, bem como expor as dificuldades existentes na publicação de trabalhos relacionados à área em revistas de maio relevância. Foi acessada a Plataforma Sucupira e selecionada a Odontologia como área de avaliação e, assim, obtido um arquivo de classificações. Todas as revistas que apresentaram temas relacionados à Odontologia Legal foram registradas em duas tabelas com a quantidade de artigos publicados relacionados à área em cada uma delas. Com bases nos critérios de busca, foram encontradas 191 revistas, sendo 75 nacionais e 116 internacionais. As publicações nacionais mostraram escassa produção em revistas com fator de alto impacto, enquanto que as internacionais apresentaram uma maior quantidade, apesar de ser minoria dentro da produção total. Com esse trabalho, foi possível comparar a classificação Qualis entre revistas nacionais e internacionais, destacando a distância entre tais classificações e expondo a dificuldade de publicação em revistas de alta competitividade e internacionalização.

Scientific papers look for the information transference and construction of high quality knowledge. Forensic Dentistry, although the wide field of professional activity, involves several themes related to Law that often makes it difficult to publish in international scientific journals. This study aimed to map the national and international scientific journals with publications in Forensic Dentistry, as well as to expose the difficulties to publish papers in high impact factor journals. It was accessed the Sucupira Platform (Brazil) and selected Dentistry as an evaluation area to get the classification file. All journals that presented issues related to Forensic Dentistry were recorded in two tables with the number of papers published related to the area in each of them. 191 journals were found, 75 national and 116 international. The national publications showed few productions in high impact factor journals, while the international ones presented a larger quantity, but still a minority within the total production. With this study, it was possible to compare the Qualis classification between national and international journals, highlighting the distance between such classifications and exposing the difficulty of publication in journals that present high competitiveness and internationality.