Reliability of panoramic radiography in chronological age estimation

INTRODUCTION: There has been a strong relationship between the growth rate of bone and teeth, which can be utilized for the purpose of age identification of an individual. AIMS AND OBJECTIVE: The present study was designed to determine the relationship between the dental age, the age from dental panoramic radiography, skeletal age, and chronological age. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The study included 270 individuals, averaging between 17 years and 25 years of age from out-patient department of New Horizon Dental College and Hospital, Sakri, Bilaspur, Chhattisgarh, India, for third molar surgery. Panoramic and hand wrist radiographs were taken, the films were digitally processed for visualization of the wisdom teeth. The confirmations of ages were repeated again at an interval of 4 weeks by a radiologist. The extracted wisdom teeth were placed in 10% formalin and were examined by one dental surgeon to estimate the age on the basis of root formation. Student's t-test was adopted for statistical analysis and probability (P value) was calculated. CONCLUSION: Estimating the age of an individual was accurate by examining extracted third molar. Age estimation through panoramic radiography was highly accurate in upper right quadrant (mean = 0.72 and P = 0.077).