Tooth development standards for South Australia

The document attached has been archived with permission from the Australian Dental Association. An external link to the publisher’s copy is included.Background: Chronological age, as recorded by registration of birth date, is referred to throughout an individual's life. This information is relevant in medical and dental practice for evaluating developmental progress, for educational purposes, and in legal matters, particularly in the application of criminal law. The absence of birth date information raises particular concerns, and estimates of chronological age are often required. Standards of dental maturation may be used to estimate age, but they have been shown to be gender and population sensitive. Methods: The revised Demirjian' system of dental age estimation was applied to a sample of 615 South Australian children in order to assess its accuracy. Results: The results of our study have shown that the Demirjian system is of limited accuracy when used to estimate the age of South Australian children. Conclusions: Generation of new standard curves, specific to the Australian population, is indicated.CJ McKenna, H James, JA Taylor, GC Townsen

Timing of Demirjian's tooth formation stages

BackgroundGlobal differences in Demirjian et al.'s method of assessing dental maturity are thought to be due to population differences.AimThe aim of this study was to investigate the timing of individual tooth formation stages in children from eight countries.Research designThis was a meta-analysis of previously published data from retrospective cross-sectional studies of dental maturity.MethodData of mandibular permanent developing teeth from panoramic radiographs (Demirjian's stages) were combined from Australia, Belgium, Canada, England, Finland, France, South Korea and Sweden (n = 9002, ages 2-16.99 years). Age-of-attainment was calculated using logistic regression for each group by sex and meta-analysis of the total. Overlapping 95% confidence intervals of the means was interpreted as no significant difference.ResultsMean ages for each group and total were significantly different in 65 out of 509 comparisons (p ConclusionsThese results suggest no major differences in the timing of tooth formation stages between these children. This fails to explain previous findings of differences using Demirjian's dental maturity method