Abstract
Tooth development is widely used for age estimation and staging physical maturity. It is of great importance in dental age estimation in forensic dentistry, orthodontic treatment planning, and pediatric endocrinology. This study aimed to compare the accuracy of two age estimation methods, i.e., the London Atlas and Smith’s method, using the panoramic view of developing teeth. In this descriptive-analytic study, panoramic radiographs of 339 healthy individuals, including 145 boys and 194 girls, were assessed. The participants aged between 5.00 and 15.99 years. Dental age of the subjects was determined by the London Atlas of Human Tooth Development and Eruption and Smith’s method. The collected information was entered in the SPSS software (Ver.18). Differences and correlations between chronological and dental age were assessed by paired t tests and Pearson’s correlation analysis. In all analyzes, the significance level was considered less than 0.05. The mean chronological age of the subjects was 10.13 ± 2.92 years. The mean ages estimated by the London Atlas and Smith’s method were 10.29 ± 2.91 and 9.89 ± 2.84 years, respectively. Paired t test showed that the differences between the mean chronological age and mean estimated ages using the London Atlas and Smith’s method were not significant (P = 0.15 and 0.16, respectively). Our findings showed that both methods had high accuracy for age estimation, but the London Atlas is easier to use.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Berndt DC, Despotovic T, Mund MT, Filippi A (2008) The role of the dentist in modern forensic age determination. Schw Monats Zahnm 118:1073–1088 (in French, German)
Cameriere R, Ferrante L, Cingolani M (2006) Age estimation in children by measurement of open apices in teeth. Int J Legal Med 120:49–52
White SC, Pharoah MJ (2014) Oral radiology: principles and interpretation, 7th edn. Elsevier, Missouri
Braga J, Heuze Y, Chabadel O, Sonan NK, Gueramy A (2005) Non-adult dental age assessment: correspondence analysis and linear regression versus Bayesian predictions. Int J Legal Med 119:260–274
Ogodescu AE, Bratu E, Tudor A, Ogodescu A (2011) Estimation of child’s biological age based on tooth development. Rom J Legal Med 19:115–124
Alqahtani SJ (2012) The London atlas: developing an atlas of tooth development and testing its quality and performance measures. Queen Mary University, London
Butti AC, Clivio A, Ferraroni M, Spada E, Testa A, Salvato A (2009) Haavikko’s method to assess dental age in Italian children. Eur J Orthod 31:150–155
Priyadarshini C, Puranik MP, Uma SR (2015) Dental age estimation methods: a review. Int J Adv Health Sci 1:19–25
Javadinejad S, Ghafari R, Memar Ardestani M (2011) Accuracy of two methods of age estimation in children based on radiography of developing teeth. IJFM 17:141–147
Javadinejad S, Sekhavati H, Ghafari R (2015) A comparison of the accuracy of four age estimation methods based on panoramic radiography of developing teeth. J Dent Res Dent Clin Dent Prospects 9:72–78
Kırzıoğlu Z, Ceyhan D (2012) Accuracy of different dental age estimation methods on Turkish children. Forensic Sci Int 216:61–67
Willems G, Van Olmen A, Spiessens B, Carels C (2001) Dental age estimation in Belgian children: Demirjian’s technique revisited. J Forensic Sci 46:893–895
Smith BH (1991) Standards of human tooth formation and dental age assessment. In: Kelley MA, Larsen CS (eds) In advances in dental anthropology. Wiley-Liss, New York, pp 143–168
Alqahtani SJ, Hector MP, Liversidge HM (2010) Brief communication: the London atlas of human tooth development and eruption. Am J Phys Anthropol 142:481–490
AlQahtani SJ, Hector MP, Liversidge HM (2014) Accuracy of dental age estimation charts: Schour and Massler, Ubelaker and the London atlas. Am J Phys Anthropol 154:70–78
Alshihri AM, Kruger E, Tennant M (2015) Dental age assessment of Western Saudi children and adolescents. Saudi Dent J 27:131–136
Corral C, García F, García J, León P, Herrera A, Martínez C, Moreno F (2010) Chronological versus dental age in subjects from 5 to 19 years: a comparative study with forensic implications. Colomb Méd 41:215–223
Hernández LF, Sierra LH (2002) Análisis de estructuras dentales y óseas, determinantes de edades biológicas que permitan caracterizar tres grupos etáreos y tres edades cronológicas de importancia legal, en ambos géneros (tesis de pregrado). Santa Bogotá 1–45. (in Spanish)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflicts of interest
The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Ghafari, R., Ghodousi, A. & Poordavar, E. Comparison of the accuracy of the London atlas and Smith method in dental age estimation in 5–15.99-year-old Iranians using the panoramic view. Int J Legal Med 133, 189–195 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00414-018-1808-6
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00414-018-1808-6