Age Estimation by Dental Calcification Stages and Hand-Wrist Radiograph

Introduction: An essential part of pediatric dentistry in recent times is age estimation for various purposes such as orthodontics, forensic dentistry, human anthropology, and bioarchaeology. Assessment of calcification of dental tissue is another physiologic method for skeletal growth assessment. Aims: This study aims to evaluate the correlation between dental calcification stages and skeletal maturity indicators and their application in age estimation purposes. Methods: Tooth calcification was assessed by Demirjian's method and hand-wrist assessment was done by Fishman’s method. Spearman's rank-order correlation coefficient was applied to measure the association between skeletal maturational indicators and dental calcification stages of individual teeth, and the statistical significance of the correlation was tested. Results: Spearman's significant coefficients for canine, first premolar, second premolar, and molar are 0.11, 0.09, 0.09, and 0.13, respectively, which are not significant. Conclusion: Fishman's method of hand-wrist radiograph assessment is quite accurate as a maturity indicator but its association with dental calcification stages cannot be established.