Nordic theme in forensic odontology 2026

Welcome to a new year and a special issue of Nordic theme in forensic odontology 2026. This issue of the Nordic theme has been accomplished by an ad hoc editorial committee consisting of Sigríður Rósa Víðisdóttir (Iceland), Dorthe Arenholt Bindslev (Denmark), Anna Jinghede Sundwall (Sweden), Simen E. Kopperud (Norway), Mari Metsäniitty (Finland) and with Svend Richter (Iceland) as the scientific coordinating editor.

This year we celebrate the 32nd anniversary of the Nordic theme project. The very first edition of the theme was published back in 1995, and the first topic was endodontics. In the preface of the first issue the editors proudly announced a historic edition, which was the start of a unique Nordic collaboration. Thirty years later the ad hoc editorial committee is proud to introduce a series of articles on the topic forensic odontology. It is time to introduce this discipline on this forum.

Forensic odontology is proper handling, examination, and evaluation of dental evidence, which will be presented in the interest of justice. The main responsibilities of forensic odontologist include identification of human remains, age estimation, identification following mass fatalities, assessing bite mark injuries, assessment abuse cases (child, spousal, elder), investigation of fraud in the health insurance system and civil cases involving malpractice.

This theme project consists of a series of 10 articles that are intended to cover as many areas of the discipline as possible. There are a total of 24 authors in the Nordic countries who have put in a lot of work to make this publication possible, a publication which has not been done before. We are greatly indebted to each of the authors and support from the national dental journals for making this Nordic theme possible.

We hope you enjoy reading as much as we enjoyed assembling this issue.