Testing international dental maturation scoring system and population-specific Demirjian versions on Saudi sub-population

OBJECTIVES The purpose of this study was to test the applicability of the Demirjian method and revised versions for estimating chronological age (CA) from dental age (DA) in a sample of children. STUDY DESIGN A sample of 252 individuals of known age (4 to 14 yrs), sex (males: 125, females: 127), and ethnicity (Saudi) was collected. Each individual was aged using the original Demirjian method and revised versions, including Saudi, Kuwaiti, Belgian, and revised international curves. The differences between dental age and chronological age were analyzed using paired sample t-tests with Bonferroni corrections and multinomial regression tests at the 0.05 level of significance. RESULTS The results indicated an over-aging of the sample as a whole by about 10 months using Demirjian tables, 5.5 months using Kuwaiti tables, 24.7 months using Belgian tables, and 5 months using revised international tables. The sample was under-aged by 0.6 month using Saudi tables. The overall discrepancies between CA and DA were statistically significant (P < 0.0001) for all methods with the exception of Saudi curves. CONCLUSIONS The findings suggest that the Saudi population method is most accurate on a Saudi population. Key words:Age estimation, juvenile, forensic dentistry, Saudi Arabia.