Abstract
A growing number of Cambodian children without legal documentary evidence of date of birth are vulnerable to exploitation. This study aimed to evaluate the applicability of southern Chinese reference dataset for dental age estimation on Cambodian children and young adults of different socioeconomic status. Dental panoramic tomographs (DPT) of 371 Cambodian children and young adults belonging to lower and higher socioeconomic status (SES) groups were analyzed. All the left maxillary and mandibular permanent teeth including the third molars were scored based on Demirjian's classification of tooth development stages. Chronological age (CA) was calculated from the date of birth and date of exposure of radiograph. The mean age of attainment for each stage of development was obtained from the southern Chinese reference dataset. Dental age (DA) was calculated by averaging the mean age scores for all the teeth. Paired t-test and correlation analysis were conducted to measure associations between the chronological age and the dental age for males and females in the lower and higher socio-economic status groups. Underestimation of age was observed in both SES groups using the southern Chinese reference dataset. For the higher SES group, the difference between the chronological and dental age (CA-DA) was 0.26 years for females and 0.11 years for males. The difference was statistically significant only in females (p < 0.05). In the low SES group, the results showed a difference of 0.07 years in females and 0.01 years in males; the differences were not statistically significant in both sexes (p > 0.05). A strong correlation was observed between the CA and DA in both sex and SES groups ranging from 0.969 to 0.988 (p < 0.05). The southern Chinese dental reference dataset can be used to estimate the age of undocumented Cambodian male and female children and young adults of both higher and lower SES.
Highlights
A total of 371 Dental Panoramic Tomographs (DPT) were included in this study. This comprised of 171 DPTs of 86 females and 85 males in the lower socioeconomic status group, and 200 DPT's comprising 101 males and 99 females in the higher economic status group
Many dental reference datasets exist from many countries, this is the first ever dental age study conducted in Cambodia, and the first to categorize the subjects based on socioeconomic status to test its effect on the variations in the estimated age
Our results demonstrated that the difference between chronological age (CA) and dental age (DA) in Cambodian females and males in the low socioeconomic status (SES) group was small, being only 0.01 years and 0.07 years respectively
Summary
According to the Thai Government, between July and October 2014, after major migration of Cambodian workers from Thailand, nearly 700 thousand Cambodian migrant workers and 40,000 dependents remained in Thailand without legal documents These workers registered at One-stop service centers seeking temporary amnesty from deportation [2]. Criminal proceedings, place of detention, sentencing, and the defendant's legal rights are all influenced by whether the person is classified as a child or adult [3]. These individuals may be reluctant to give their correct age or, in many cases, may not know their age [4]
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