Indian Journal of Forensic Medicine & Toxicology
  • Year: 2019
  • Volume: 13
  • Issue: 4

Thickness Corrected Translucency Measurement-An Efficient Tool in Age Estimation

  • Author:
  • Shweta Yellapurkar1, N Srikant2,, Ravindra Kotian3, Dilip G Naik4, Karen Boaz5, KP Nandita6, Nidhi Manaktala7
  • Total Page Count: 6
  • Page Number: 145 to 150

1Assistant Professor, Department of Oral Pathology and Microbiology, Manipal College of Dental sciences, Mangalore, Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Manipal, India

2Professor and Head, Department of Oral Pathology and Microbiology, Manipal College of Dental sciences, Mangalore, Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Manipal, India

3Associate Professor, Department of Dental Materials, Manipal College of Dental sciences, Mangalore, Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Manipal, India

4Professor, Department of Periodontics, Manipal College of Dental sciences, Mangalore, Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Manipal, India

5Professor, Department of Oral Pathology, Manipal College of Dental sciences, Mangalore, Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Manipal, India

6Associate Professor, Department of Oral Pathology, Manipal College of Dental sciences, Mangalore, Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Manipal, India

7Reader, Department of Oral Pathology, Manipal College of Dental sciences, Mangalore, Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Manipal, India

*Corresponding Author: Dr. Srikant N. Professor and Head, Department Of Oral Pathology and Microbiology, Manipal College of Dental sciences, Mangalore-575001, Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Manipal-576104, India Email: srikant.n@manipal.edu

Online published on 27 November, 2019.

Abstract

Dentinal translucency is an established histological parameter for age estimation. Thickness of a ground section is a confounding agent for translucency assessment. The aim of the present study was to assess the interaction of thickness with predictive ability of translucency area/length/grey value for age. Ground sections were prepared of 50 extracted teeth (of known age/gender), thickness was measured, and the scanned image was assessed for area/length of translucency using image-J-v1.50. Simple linear regression analysis was used to correlate age with translucency parameters with thickness as an interaction variable. Translucency length was a better predictor of age than area. The equation with translucency length, average thickness and mean grey value was seen to have the best correlation with age (r =0.708, SEE = 13.346 years). Age estimation using dentinal translucency is feasible and is unaffected by size of the tooth but is influenced by the thickness of the ground section.

Keywords

Dentinal translucency, mean grey value, age estimation, ground section, area of translucency