Age-at-Death Estimation by Pulp/Tooth Area Ratio in Canines: Study of a 20th-Century Mexican Sample of Prisoners to Test Cameriere's Method

• NCJ Number: 236208
• Journal: Journal of Forensic Sciences Volume: 56 Issue: 5 Dated: September 2011 Pages: 1302-1309
• Author(s): Stefano De Luca, M.Sc.; Josefina Bautista, Ph.D.; Inmaculada Aleman, Ph.D.; Roberto Cameriere, Ph.D.
• Date Published: September 2011
• Length: 8 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Report (Study/Research)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This study examined age-at-death estimation by testing the accuracy of pulp/tooth area ratio by peri-apical X-ray images.

Abstract

Accurate age estimation has always been a problem for forensic scientists, and apposition of secondary dentine is often used as an indicator of age. Cameriere et al. studied the pulp/tooth area ratio by peri-apical X-ray images of the canines, to observe the apposition of secondary dentine. The present study examines the application of this technique in a Mexican identified sample coming from the Department of Physical Anthropology of the INAH, at Mexico City. The main aim of this work is to test the reliability of this method in a skeletal sample of a specific population, different from the samples used for its development. The obtained regression model explained 96.2 percent of total variance (R2 = 0.962) with a standard error of estimate of 1.909 and a standard deviation of 1.947. These results demonstrate great reliability and that the age/secondary dentine relationship is not variable in this specific population. (Published Abstract)