Age-dependent decrease in dental pulp cavity volume as a feature for age assessment: a comparative in vitro study...

Area of Science:

• Dentistry
• Radiology
• Forensic Anthropology

Background:

• Secondary dentin formation is a reliable indicator for age assessment.
• Modern imaging techniques offer new possibilities for dental pulp evaluation.

Purpose of the Study:

• To compare the efficacy of ultrashort echo time (UTE)-MRI and cone beam computed tomography (CBCT) in visualizing and quantifying dental pulp volume for age assessment.
• To evaluate the reliability and agreement of MRI and CBCT measurements between examiners and settings.

Main Methods:

• 32 extracted human teeth were examined using 9.4-T UTE-MRI and CBCT.
• Three-dimensional pulp volume reconstruction was performed using manual and semi-automatic segmentation.
• Inter-examiner and inter-method agreement was assessed.

Main Results:

• CBCT successfully determined pulp volume for all teeth, with a mean volume ~43% higher and greater variability than MRI.
• MRI provided reliable measurements with lower variability, showing higher sensitivity to settings and examiner differences (p < 0.05).
• Examiner agreement for pulp volume was excellent for both methods (ICC > 0.995).

Conclusions:

• 9.4-T UTE-MRI is a reliable method for dental age assessment, offering lower measurement variation than CBCT.
• Manual segmentation is recommended for MRI due to detailed pulp cavity visualization.
• Method-specific reference values are crucial for CBCT due to systematically larger volume estimations.