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Radiographic dental age estimation applying and comparing Demirjian’s seven (1973) and four (1976) teeth methods

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Abstract

To apply Demirjian’s seven (1973, D7) and four (1976, D4) teeth methods in a sample of Brazilian children and compare their performances for age estimation. Panoramic radiographs of 1200 children (600 females and 600 males) were collected from Southeast Brazil. The children were equally distributed (n = 60 females and 60 males) between age intervals of 1 year between 6 and 15.9 (mean age = 10.9; standard deviation [SD]: 2.9) years. D7 and D4 dental age estimation methods were applied by two observers and were compared based on their error rates (error = estimated age—chronological age). Both methods overestimated the chronological age (p < 0.0001). D7 led to overestimations of 0.71 (p < 0.0001) in females and 0.83 (p < 0.0001) in males, while the overestimations with D4 were 0.14 (p = 0.0067) and 0.73 (p < 0.0001) for females and males, respectively. The mean age estimated by D7 was 11.7 (SD: 3.1) years, while for D4, it was 11.3 (SD: 3.3) years. Intra- and interobserver agreement was ≥ 0.98. D4 optimized the performance of radiographic dental age estimation compared to D7. Improvements were reflected in the total sample and separately for female and male children from Southeast Brazil.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Oral Radiology, Faculdade Sao Leopoldo Mandic, Campinas, Brazil

    Rafael Cidade, Marcelo dos Santos, Juliano Martins Bueno, Mariana Soares, José Luiz Cintra Junqueira & Ademir Franco

  2. Division of Forensic Dentistry, Faculdade Sao Leopoldo Mandic, Campinas, Brazil

    Thaís Cássia Alves

  3. Department of Therapeutic Dentistry, Institute of Dentistry, Sechenov University, Moscow, Russia

    Mariana Arakelyan

  4. Centre of Forensic and Legal Medicine and Dentistry, University of Dundee, Dundee, UK

    Ademir Franco

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  1. Rafael Cidade
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  3. Thaís Cássia Alves
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Correspondence to Ademir Franco.

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This study used a sample of radiographs retrospectively collected from an existing institutional database. Anonymized collection was granted by the legal guardian of the data.

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Not applicable. Consent for data collection was obtained from the institutional representative (data guardian) was obtained to collect radiographs.

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Cidade, R., dos Santos, M., Alves, T.C. et al. Radiographic dental age estimation applying and comparing Demirjian’s seven (1973) and four (1976) teeth methods. Forensic Sci Med Pathol 19, 175–183 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12024-022-00563-5

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