Age Estimation from Teeth among Benghazi Children Using Demirjian’s Method

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Background: Age estimation his of great importance in many clinical decisions in pediatrics, legal medicine, forensic sciences, anthropology and orthodontics in the view of increased immigration flow and globalization of economy. Demirjian method of age estimation is one of the widely used methods in determining chronological age of children, youths and young adults in many countries, however, its applicability in Libyan population have not been tested yet. .Aims: This study was aimed to evaluate the accuracy of Demirjian method in Benghazi children esti-mating the chronological age of boys and girls aged 6 to 16 years of age from panoramic radiographs and to establish a new dental age curve if the Demirjian method was not found to be accurate.Materials and Methods: This retrospective cross sectional study consisted of 250 OPGs for 127 boys and 123 girls between the ages of 6–16 years. All children were placed in the age group closest to their chronological age. The dental age was scored on all seven left mandibular teeth by calibrated examiner. Statistical analyses using the t-test and Pearson correlation were performed.Results: There was no significant difference in both boys and girls in all the age groups between their chronological age and dental age except for age group 6, 7, 15. Even though there was a slight overes-timation in boys in some age groups and slight underestimation in girls in some groups, Moreover, correlation analyses for each age group showed a significant correlation between the chronological age and the dental age, using the Demirjian method, in most age groups (P < 0.01). When comparing the maturation score between boys and girls, the Student’s t-test didn’t reveal any statistically signif-icant difference between boys and girls in most age groups.Conclusion: Boys and girls living in the east region of Libya exhibited similar pattern of dental de-velopment when compared by Demirjian method with a reliable estimation of dental age b this method, so Demirjian method can be used as for this propose in children from the eastern region of Libya.