Dental Age in Central Poland

• NCJ Number: 222205
• Journal: Forensic Science International Volume: 174 Issue: 2-3 Dated: January 2008 Pages: 207-216
• Author(s): Ingrid Rozylo-Kalinowska; Emma Kiworkowa-Raczkowska; Pawel Kalinowski
• Date Published: January 2008
• Length: 10 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Report (Study/Research)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This study compared the dental ages of 994 children, ages 6-16, from the region of Mazovia (Central Poland) with developmental standards presented by Demirjian, in order to analyze sexual dimorphism of dental age in the studied group and to estimate the validity of Demirjian's standards for the studied Polish population.

Abstract

The study found that Demirjian's dental developmental standards, which are based on the study of a French-Canadian population, are not suitable for the population of Polish children in the current study; however, the study devised gender-specific equations that allowed for the adaptation of the original Demirjian's scores for the assessment of dental age in the Polish population of Mazovia. The dental ages in the Polish children as determined by the unmodified Demirjian standards were significantly different from their chronological ages, which means that dental development was scored as significantly accelerated. The most significant acceleration was observed in girls age 11 and 12, as well as in 13-year-old boys; for both girls and boys, a considerable acceleration of dental age was seen in 6-year-olds. The study concludes that Demirjian's standards used in other countries cannot be automatically used to evaluate dental ages of children in the region of Mazovia. The obtained results are an introduction to preparing complete tables that would produce accurate evaluations of dental ages in accordance with Demirjian's standards. Under the original Demirjian method, dental ages are estimated by the developmental stage of seven left mandibular permanent teeth. This paper describes how researchers used a nonlinear regression model to create a function formula that adapted Demirjian's scores to arrive at a correct estimation of chronological age for the Polish children from their dental development. 8 tables, 6 figures, and 24 references