Reliability of London atlas for dental age estimation in an Australian cohort

Age estimation is a very essential tool that is required for quite a lot of purposes in legal settings and for disaster victim identification purposes. In the recent years, London Atlas for dental age estimation has gained popularity and its applicability in Australia has not been sufficiently validated. Therefore, a study was aimed to study the ability of London Atlas to accurately estimate the ages of an Australian cohort.

To test the age prediction reliability of the London Atlas on an Australian population and to determine if there is a difference in its prediction accuracy between males and females.

A total of 193 panoramic radiographs were accessed from the University of Queensland's archival records. The London Atlas was used to estimate the dental ages of these radiographs of 96 females and 97 males, aged between 5 and 17 years.

Of the entire cohort, the difference between the mean estimated age (11.56 years) and mean chronological (11.92 years) age was 0.36 years. This difference was found to be statistically significant (p < 0.001). The over-estimation of ages was significant in age groups 6, 7, 8,10 and 11. The mean age difference for males was - 0.038 years while the difference for females was 0.471 years. However, the difference between the two sexes (0.509 years) was statistically insignificant (p > 0.001). The London Atlas shows a tendency to over-estimate ages of females and under-estimate ages of males.

The London Atlas was found to overestimate the ages of children in an Australian population by approximately four and a half months (0.37 years). However, there was no difference in age prediction accuracy between males and females. Overall, the London Atlas has comparable accuracy with other dental age estimation methods and should be considered as a tool for age estimation.