R4 Dental age assessment in 15–17 year old young people

Abstract

Objectives: To determine reference intervals for Dental Age Assessment (DAA) for the 16 year threshold.Design: Descriptive study from a convenience sample of radiographic archives.Sample and methods: Dental Panoramic Tomographs of 15–17 year patients treated at King's College Dental Hospital. Tooth Development Stages (TDS) for the 12 stage (Haavikko 1970), and the 8 stage (Demirjian 1971), will be recorded on specially prepared forms. The computer database is designed to return the age of attainment for each of the TDS's. Each TDS provides a set of statistical information viz. the mean, standard deviation, standard error and confidence intervals. In addition a probability distribution function is produced for each TDS. Only teeth that are still developing are included in the assessment. The ages for still developing teeth are ‘averaged’ using meta‐analysis to provide an estimate of age for an individual. This will be tested by taking a separate sample of 50 children with the gold standard of Chronological Age and comparing this with the Dental Age Assessment for these subjects.Results: To date, a small number of assessments show that the individual Dental Age Assessments are within 6 months of the chronological age.Conclusion: Dental Age assessment derived by age calculation of tooth development stages and meta‐analysis provides, improved estimates of age.