Evaluate the Utility of Smaller Sample Sizes When Assessing Dental Maturity Curves for Forensic Age Estimation

• NCJ Number: 236895
• Journal: Journal of Forensic Sciences Volume: 56 Issue: 6 Dated: November 2011 Pages: 1604-1609
• Author(s): Sara J. Flood, B.Sc., M.F.Sc.; Warren J. Mitchell, B.Sc.; Charles E. Oxnard, M.B., Ch.B., Ph.D., D.Sc.; Berwin A. Turlach, Ph.D.; John McGeachie, B.D.Sc., Ph.D., D.Sc.
• Date Published: November 2011
• Length: 6 pages
• Sponsoring Agency: University of Western Australia
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Report (Study/Research)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America
• Note: Based on the abstract first reported in the Journal of Comparative Human Biology [Flood S, Franklin D, Oxnard CE, Meyer J, Dadour I. Dental development assessment in Western Australian subadults. Proceedings of the Twentieth Annual Scientific Meeting of the Australasian Society for Human Biology; 2006 Dec 3–6; Melbourne. Ireland: Homo 2007;58:235–65].

Annotation

Dental maturation and chronological age estimation were determined from 144 healthy Western Australian individuals aged 3.6-14.5 years.

Abstract

The results were compared with Farah et al.'s previous study which comprised a larger heterogeneous sample of Western Australian individuals (n = 1450). Orthopantomograms were analyzed with the application of Demirjian and Goldstein's 4-tooth method based on eight stages of dental mineralization. Analysis of variance revealed no significant differences in dental maturity scores in each age group among the males in both studies; similar results were seen in the females. Paired t-tests showed no statistical significance overall between chronological and estimated ages for the males in our sample (p = 0.181), whereas the females showed significant differences (p less than 0.001). The results show that smaller samples may be used when assessing dental maturity curves for forensic age estimation. (Published Abstract)