Abstract
ABSTRACT Objectives: To evaluate the accuracy of Demirjian method in estimating the chronological age of male and female Jordanian children and to establish a new dental age curve if the Demirjian method was not found to be accurate. Methods: Orthopantomograms (OPTs) of 1374 Caucasian Jordanian children (684 females and 690 males) aged 4 to16 years were selected and the dental age was determined by Demirjian method. The chronological ages of the children were obtained by subtracting their birthdates from the date of taking the radiograph. The OPTs were obtained from Archives of Dental Teaching Clinics /XXX and other private orthodontic practices in Irbid and Amman. Results: Demirjian method overestimated chronological age in female and male subjects aged 4 to 8 years. Afterwards, the method underestimated chronological age in females aged 9-11 years and 14-16 years. In male subjects, chronological age was underestimated in subjects aged 9-12 years and 15-16 years. New the dental age curves for Jordanian females and males were constructed. The constants for the quadratic model for the new curves were (b0=-25.341, b1=17.557, b2=-0.623) for females and (b0=-29.809, b1=17.396, b2=-0.595) for males. Conclusion: Demirjian method overestimated the chronological age of Jordanians below the age of 8 years and underestimated the age of Jordanians above 8 years. A new DA standard for Jordanian children was developed and tested for accuracy.
Highlights
In many cases, chronological age (CA) and biological age may not be the same, due to developmental variations
It has many advantages over emergence when used to evaluate maturity and estimate a patient’s age. These include the ability to study the majority of teeth in one radiographic examination, whereas tooth emergence is only a short phase of the process of tooth eruption, which limits the number of teeth available to study
The means and standard deviations (SD) of CA and Dental age (DA) and the difference between them for females, males and total groups are shown in tables 1-2
Summary
Chronological age (CA) and biological age may not be the same, due to developmental variations. Tooth formation (calcification) is a more reliable indicator of dental maturity than eruption (gingival emergence) because it is not affected by local factors such as loss of primary teeth, lack of space, malnutrition, dental decays, ankylosis, or orthodontic anomalies and is instead much more genetically determined [3,4]. It has many advantages over emergence when used to evaluate maturity and estimate a patient’s age. Based on these facts, using the formation and calcification of teeth to determine dental age is a much more accurate, precise, and reliable indicator of dental maturity than tooth emergence [5]
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