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Published on: August 15, 2018
Controversies in age estimation from developing teeth
1a Queen Mary University of London, Bart's and The Royal School of Medicine and Dentistry, Institute of Dentistry , Turner Street , London , UK.
Background:
Numerous dental reference data exist to estimate age from developing permanent teeth.
Aim:
To compare the performance of reference data that provide a point estimate using the developing second molar.
Methods:
Performance of several methods estimating age using mandibular second molar formation was compared using the Maber test sample (age = 3-16) of 946 dental radiographs. Mean difference and mean absolute difference between dental and chronological ages were calculated. The percentage of individuals with mean absolute difference <1 year was counted across age group and tooth stage. Results for the choice of Demirjian or Moorrees tooth staging, pooled-sex, opposite sex reference data, selected stages (initial cusp tips, crown complete, root half and root complete) and statistical approaches were compared.
Results:
Tooth reference data conditioning on age, particularly probit mean age (age-at-transition) adapted for age prediction performed best. Results using sex-specific reference data, Moorrees stages and selected Moorrees stages were marginally better than other methods. No method performed well for ages 15 and 16 years.
Conclusion:
Adapted maturity data L9a and N25a reference data for this tooth performed best across age categories and tooth stages, with a mean absolute difference of 0.8 year.
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