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Objective: The biochemical approach of dental age using aspartic acid racemization has been widely reported. The aim of this systematic review was to determine the reliability and accuracy of dental age estimation using aspartic acid racemization rate analysis. Design: Eight research databases (PubMed, Google Scholar, Embase, Cochrane, MEDLINE, TRIP, Web of Science, and Scopus) were utilised to gather and assess published literatures in compliance with the PRISMA 2020 guidelines and reported in PROSPERO (CRD42020208877). This systematic review and meta-analysis focused solely on cross-sectional studies. The quality evaluation was performed using the GRADE system. The standardized mean difference between estimated and chronological age was meta-analyzed using the random effects model. Result: The literature review yielded 213 studies, of which 26 were considered acceptable for inclusion in this report. Out of 26 studies, 19 presented sufficient evidence for meta-analysis and the remaining 7 were used to construct a qualitative review. According to the meta-analysis, premolar-related studies had the least variability (Tau2 = 0.23; I2 = 72%) among other tooth groups. Conclusion: A substantial degree of heterogeneity was found in every type of tooth. Only the premolar teeth had lower degree variability; thus, it is safe to believe that the premolar tooth is the best for this type of age estimation. It is recommended to develop population-specific mathematical equations to improve the accuracy of this age estimation approach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Age estimation is vital for both clinical and forensic reasons. An eight-tooth method was developed by Chaillet and Demirjian to estimate dental age of children and adolescents. The aim of the current study was to investigate the applicability of Chaillet and Demirjian's scores for the Malaysian Chinese aged 5–18 years. A total of 1228 dental panoramic tomographs were examined. The difference between Chronological Age (CA) and the Dental Age (DA) calculated using the Chaillet and Demirjian's dental maturity scores was compared using the paired t-test. The DA was generally underestimated. The average difference between CA and DA ranged from +1.55 to +2.34 years for boys and +2.18 to +4.10 years for girls. Consequently, CA and DA did not have acceptable correspondence. Therefore, a prediction model from Demirjian's scores was established using an Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) computational approach to develop new dental maturity scores. The new scores showed a more accurate estimation of age and the difference between CA and DA was −0.05 ± 0.92 years for boys and −0.06 ± 1.11 years for girls. Moreover, the differences were statistically not significant. The new dental maturity scores could therefore be used to estimate the age of Malaysian Chinese children and adolescents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the guest editors discuss the theme of the issue, dental age estimation using radiographs: conflict between ethical principles and scientific evidence.

Understanding dental maturation in ethnically distinct populations is important in forensic age estimations and the presence of population differences in dental maturation was highly debated. No such comparison had been performed between two major populations; Caucasian and Chinese. This study aims to analyze and compare the maturation of permanent teeth from a sample of Caucasian and Chinese populations. Dental panoramic radiographs of subjects aged 2-24years belonging to United Kingdom (UK) Caucasian and Hong Kong (HK) Chinese populations were obtained from a teaching hospital. The teeth were scored and reference datasets were developed separately for males and females. Statistical significance was set at p<0.05 and independent sample t-test was conducted between the average ages at assessment for each stage of development for all the teeth in both groups. The HK Chinese were dentally advanced than the UK Caucasians by an average of 5 months, however, reverse trend was observed in third molars (p<0.05). These findings must be considered whilst utilising population specific reference dataset for dental age estimation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Many countries have recently experienced a rapid increase in the demand for forensic age estimates of unaccompanied minors. Hong Kong is a major tourist and business center where there has been an increase in the number of people intercepted with false travel documents. An accurate estimation of age is only possible when a dataset for age estimation that has been derived from the corresponding ethnic population. Thus, the aim of this study was to develop and validate a Reference Data Set (RDS) for dental age estimation for southern Chinese.Materials and Methods: A total of 2306 subjects were selected from the patient archives of a large dental hospital and the chronological age for each subject was recorded. This age was assigned to each specific stage of dental development for each tooth to create a RDS. To validate this RDS, a further 484 subjects were randomly chosen from the patient archives and their dental age was assessed based on the scores from the RDS. Dental age was estimated using meta-analysis command corresponding to random effects statistical model. Chronological age (CA) and Dental Age (DA) were compared using the paired t-test.Results: The overall difference between the chronological and dental age (CA-DA) was 0.05 years (2.6 weeks) for males and 0.03 years (1.6 weeks) for females. The paired t-test indicated that there was no statistically significant difference between the chronological and dental age (p > 0.05).Conclusion: The validated southern Chinese reference dataset based on dental maturation accurately estimated the chronological age. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• First ever dental reference datasets based on two staging systems were developed for age estimation in Hispanic children and adolescents in Texas, United States. • Amongst the different dental age estimation methods, the unweighted method showed minimum difference in females and males in both the 8-stage and 14-stage systems. • The 8-stage system provided more accurate estimates of age and it is recommended for dental age estimation in Hispanic children and adolescents in Texas. Dental tissues follow a systematic pattern of development and several radiological methods have been developed and validated. This study aims to develop and validate a reference data set (RDS) for dental development of Hispanic children and to compare the mean age using the Demirjian and Moorrees tooth developmental stage (TDS) systems. A total of 600 Dental Panoramic Tomographs (DPTs) of Hispanic children aged 6 to 17 years were obtained and reference datasets (RDS) were developed by scoring all the maxillary and mandibular teeth in the left side of the arch according to the Demirjian (8 stage) and Moorrees (14 stage) scoring systems. To validate the RDS, 120 (DPTs) separate from the RDS were randomly selected, and dental ages were calculated from the RDS using unweighted and five weighted mean average methods. Statistical significance was set at p < 0.05, and a paired t -test was conducted to compare the difference between Chronological Age (CA) and Dental Age (DA) for each weighting method. For the 8-stage system, the mean (sd, se) difference between CA and DA for the unweighted method was 0.04 (0.51, 0.065) years for males, and 0.07 (0.41, 0.053) years for females. The difference was not statistically significant for all five weighting methods (p > 0.05). For the 14-stage system, CA-DA for the unweighted method was 0.17 (0.33, 0.042) years for males, and 0.13 (0.41, 0.053) years for females. The difference was statistically significant for most of the Moorrees methods (p < 0.05). Dental age derived from the unweighted average method using the reference dataset derived from Demirjian's 8-stage system is recommended for dental age estimation in Hispanic children and adolescents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Background: Estimation of age of an individual can be performed by evaluating the pattern of dental development. A dataset for age estimation based on the dental maturity of a French–Canadian population was published over 35 years ago and has become the most widely accepted dataset. The applicability of this dataset has been tested on different population groups. Aim: To estimate the observed differences between Chronological age (CA) and Dental age (DA) when the French Canadian dataset was used to estimate the age of different population groups. Materials and methods: A systematic search of literature for papers utilizing the French Canadian dataset for age estimation was performed. All language articles from PubMed, Embase and Cochrane databases were electronically searched for terms ‘Demirjian’ and ‘Dental age’ published between January 1973 and December 2011. A hand search of articles was also conducted. Results: A total of 274 studies were identified from which 34 studies were included for qualitative analysis and 12 studies were included for quantitative assessment and meta-analysis. When synthesizing the estimation results from different population groups, on average, the Demirjian dataset overestimated the age of females by 0.65 years (−0.10 years to +2.82 years) and males by 0.60 years (−0.23 years to +3.04 years). Conclusion: The French Canadian dataset overestimates the age of the subjects by more than six months and hence this dataset should be used only with considerable caution when estimating age of group of subjects of any global population. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: Dental age assessment is one the most accurate methods for estimating the age of an unknown person. Demirjian''s dataset on a French-Canadian population has been widely tested for its applicability on various ethnic groups including southern Chinese. Following inaccurate results from these studies, investigators are now confronted with using alternate datasets for comparison. Testing the applicability of other reliable datasets which result in accurate findings might limit the need to develop population specific standards. Recently, a Reference Data Set (RDS) similar to the Demirjian was prepared in the United Kingdom (UK) and has been subsequently validated. The advantages of the UK Caucasian RDS includes versatility from including both the maxillary and mandibular dentitions, involvement of a wide age group of subjects for evaluation and the possibility of precise age estimation with the mathematical technique of meta-analysis. The aim of this study was to evaluate the applicability of the United Kingdom Caucasian RDS on southern Chinese subjects. Dental panoramic tomographs (DPT) of 266 subjects (133 males and 133 females) aged 2–21 years that were previously taken for clinical diagnostic purposes were selected and scored by a single calibrated examiner based on Demirjian''s classification of tooth developmental stages (A–H). The ages corresponding to each stage of tooth developmental stage were obtained from the UK dataset. Intra-examiner reproducibility was tested and the Cohen kappa (0.88) showed that the level of agreement was ‘almost perfect’. The estimated dental age was then compared with the chronological age using a paired t-test, with statistical significance set at p <0.01. The results showed that the UK dataset, underestimated the age of southern Chinese subjects by 0.24 years but the results were not statistically significant. In conclusion, the UK Caucasian RDS may not be suitable for estimating the age of southern Chinese subjects and there is a need for an ethnic specific reference dataset for southern Chinese. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Introduction In recent years, India is facing a large number of age disputes, including the most flagrant Delhi Gang Rape case. This number is expected to rise as UNICEF has projected that only 41% of births were registered in India. Although the Government of India has taken necessary steps to register every birth, there remains discrepancy on the counts projected by different organizations. This article attempts to highlight the problems of poor birth registration practices in India and a possible solution through dental age assessment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Dental age estimation can assist in the identification of victims following natural disasters and it can also help to solve birth date disputes in individuals involved in criminal activities. A reference dataset (RDS) has been developed from the dental development of 2306 subjects of southern Han Chinese origin and subsequently validated. This study aimed to test the applicability of the southern Han Chinese dental maturation RDS on three distinct East Asian population groups. Methods: A total of 953 dental panoramic radiographs of subjects aged 2 to 24 years were obtained from Philippines, Thailand and Japan. The staging of dental development was conducted according to Anglo-Canadian classification system. The dental age (DA) was calculated using six methods; one un-weighted average and five weighted average (n-tds, sd-tds, se-tds, 1/sd-tds, 1/se-tds) methods based on the scores of the southern Han Chinese RDS. Statistical significance was set at p < 0.05 and the variation between chronological age (CA) and DA was evaluated using paired t-test and Bland & Altman scatter plots. Results: From six dental age calculations, all methods of DA accurately estimated the age of Japanese and few methods in Filipino subjects (n-tds, 1/sd-tds, 1/se-tds). There was consistent overestimation of age for all the methods for Thai females (p < 0.05). Conclusions: The southern Han Chinese dental reference dataset was shown to be most accurate for Japanese, followed by Thai males and it was particularly ineffective for Filipinos and Thai females. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• The Demirjian and DARLInG methods were used to estimate the age of 4–15 years old children of western Indian origin. • The DARLInG method showed relatively better estimate of age compared to Demirjian method, although the difference was not statistically significant. • In the absence of population reference data, the DARLInG method can be used to estimate the age of western Indian children. The aim of this study is to compare the accuracy of Demirjian and Dental Age Research London Information Group (DARLInG) methods of dental age estimation in western Indian children. A total of 485 dental panoramic radiographs of children aged between 4 and 15 years were included in this study. Dental age was estimated based on the degree of mineralization of permanent teeth in the left side of the arch. Dental age was estimated from the scores obtained from the Demirjian and DARLInG's United Kingdom Caucasian datasets respectively. The difference between the chronological age (CA) and dental age (DA) in each range (CA-DA) was analysed using paired t-test. The age and sex-based differences of the estimated age using the two methods were tested using ANOVA and Pearson correlation co-efficient analysis. The overall mean CA was 8.74 years and 9.00 years for boys and girls respectively. The overall mean difference (CA-DA) using the Demirjian's method for boys and girls were −0.68 years and −0.52 years respectively (p < 0.05). Using the DARLInG's method, the overall mean difference (CA-DA) was −0.31 years and −0.34 years for boys and girls respectively (p < 0.05). Between the two methods, significant differences were observed in different age groups (p < 0.05). Pearson correlation coefficient showed significant positive correlation between dental age estimated from the Demirjian and DARLInG methods (p < 0.05). The DARLInG method provided better estimate of age compared to Demirjian method in the western Indian population. However, an ethnic specific reference dataset specific to this population would likely produce accurate age estimates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]