Significance of dental age assessment in forensic science: A review

Abstract

Age assessment is the preliminary step in the positive identification of an individual. It is considered as one of the essential and frequently utilized method by the forensic anthropologists or forensic odontologists to determine the approximate age of living or deceased. There are certain circumstances when the chronological age of an individual or subject is missing, or chronological age needs to be verified in case of juvenile delinquency. Moreover, age determination can be made possible in the positive identification of victims of mass disasters, illegal immigration of juveniles, child marriage, imprisonment of juveniles, as well as in orthodontic treatment. Certain methods like radiographic assessment, physiological assessment, morphological assessment of teeth and bones have been implemented to assess age of such individuals. It is hard to utilized one-specific method for age determination due to variation in population size, variation in dietary habits, variation in growth and development. The appraisal has been formulated to assess age by radiographic method as it is user-friendly, quick to access and could considered to be more reliable as compared to physiological method,yet most such age-assessing frameworks are based on European population and their pertinence has still up in the air with regards to the Indian population.