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Age assessment in the living using modified Gustafson’s criteria in a northern Chinese population

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Abstract

Regressive dental changes appear to be suitable for age assessment in living adults. In 2012, Olze et al. showed that several criteria presented by Gustafson for extracted teeth can also be applied to orthopantomograms. The objective of this study was to test the applicability and reliability of this method in a Chinese population. For this purpose, 1300 orthopantomograms of 650 female and 650 male Chinese aged between 15 and 40 years were evaluated. The characteristics of secondary dentin formation, periodontal recession, attrition, and cementum apposition were reviewed in all the mandibular premolars. The sample was split into a training and test dataset. Based on the training set, the correlation of the individual characteristics with chronological age was studied with a stepwise multiple regression analysis, in which individual characteristics formed the independent variable. According to the results, the R values amounted to 0.80 to 0.83; the standard error of estimate was 4.29 to 4.75 years. By analyzing the test dataset, the accuracy of the present study, Olze’s and Timme’s formulas were determined by the difference between the estimated dental age (DA) and chronological age (CA). Taking both mean differences and mean absolute differences into account, the Chinese age estimation formula did not always perform better compared with Olze’s and Timme’s formulas for both males and females. It was concluded that this method can be used in Chinese individuals for age assessment. However, the applicability of the method is limited by the quality of the X-ray images, and the method should only be applied by experienced forensic odontologists.

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Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 81701869) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (No. xjj2017168).

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Author notes

  1. Xin-qin Si and Guang Chu contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Shaanxi Province for Craniofacial Precision Medicine Research, College of Stomatology, Xi’an Jiaotong University, 98 XiWu Road, Xi’an, 710004, Shaanxi, People’s Republic of China

    Xin-qin Si, Guang Chu & Yu-cheng Guo

  2. Department of Orthodontics, Stomatological Hospital of Xi’an Jiaotong University, 98 XiWu Road, Xi’an, 710004, Shaanxi, People’s Republic of China

    Xin-qin Si, Guang Chu & Yu-cheng Guo

  3. Institute of Legal Medicine, Charité—Universitätsmedizin, Turmstraße 21, 10559, Berlin, Germany

    Andreas Olze

  4. Institute of Legal Medicine, University Hospital Münster, Röntgenstraße 23, 48149, Münster, Germany

    Sven Schmidt, Ronald Schulz, Heidi Pfeiffer, Yu-cheng Guo & Andreas Schmeling

  5. College of Medicine and Forensics, Xi’an Jiaotong University Health Science Center, 76 West Yanta Road, Xi’an, 710004, Shaanxi, People’s Republic of China

    Teng Chen

Authors
  1. Xin-qin Si
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  2. Guang Chu
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  3. Andreas Olze
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  5. Ronald Schulz
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  6. Teng Chen
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  7. Heidi Pfeiffer
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  8. Yu-cheng Guo
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Correspondence to Yu-cheng Guo.

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Si, Xq., Chu, G., Olze, A. et al. Age assessment in the living using modified Gustafson’s criteria in a northern Chinese population. Int J Legal Med 133, 921–930 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00414-019-02024-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00414-019-02024-1

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