Dental age estimation on Bosnian-Herzegovinian children aged 6-14 years: evaluation of Chaillet's international maturity standards.

BACKGROUND Dental age estimation in children plays an important role in forensic dentistry. The most commonly used method for age estimation was developed by Demirjian in 1973 on a French-Canadian sample. It generally overestimates dental age in many populations. International maturity standards were formed to obtain a predicted age with more confidence when ethnic origin was not available. OBJECTIVES The aim of this study was to evaluate the applicability of Chaillet's international scores in the dental age assessment on Bosnian Herzegovinian (BH) children. METHODS Orthopantomograms of 1772 children, 980 girls and 792 boys aged 6.04-14.90 years, were assessed using Chaillet's international maturity tables and curves. The dental ages for both genders were compared to the chronological ages through a paired t-test. RESULTS Mean overestimation using Chaillet's international maturity standards were 0.09 ± 0.83 for girls and 0.28 ± 0.90 for boys. The absolute accuracy of residuals between the dental and chronological age were 0.65 ± 0.52 years for girls (Median: 0.52 years) and 0.73 ± 0.60 years for boys (Median: 0.57 years). CONCLUSION The Polynomial compound formula was recommended to predict dental age with more accuracy for results of international maturity standards on BH children.