Estimation of age based on dental developmental stages-Exploring the population specific models

Demirjian's method of dental age estimation is widely used for age estimation in children and adolescents. However, it's applicability in population groups other than French Canadians still remains questionable. Vastly prevalent, cultural and ethnic variations in India warrant development of population specific regression models in India. Hence, the present research is planned to develop the regression models for population groups residing in South eastern region of India. The present study was conducted on the orthopantamographs of 336 individuals (160 males and 176 females) in the age group ranging between 7 and 25 years that comprised of study group (N=336) and control group (N=36). The mandibular left permanent teeth including third molar were scored according to the ten stage scoring criteria, maturity score was calculated using gender specific weighed scores. The regression models were developed using chronologic age as dependent variable and maturity score as independent variable for males, females and total study sample. The quadratic regression functions were observed to give the best prediction models for males, females and the entire study groups. The regression models were tested for accuracy based on the mean absolute error and for reliability by calculating the percentage misclassifies using 99% of confidence intervals. The study observations, suggest that the quadratic regression models developed in the present study can be used for forensic as well as clinical age estimation with accurate and reliable results.