| Popis: |
Background: Various methods are available to assess the age of a child. However, it is much more difficult to evaluate the age of an adult just on the basis of panoramic radiographs. Cameriere’s method based on measurement of pulp/tooth ratio is one of few methods that allows to determine the age of any human being. The aim of this study is to estimate the validation of the original method in a sample of the Polish population and to elaborate a population specific formula.Materials: Panoramic radiographs taken in the Department of Dental and Maxillofacial Radiology, Medical University of Lublin, Poland were retrospectively selected for the study. The selection criteria involved a good quality panoramic radiograph with a free from any pathology upper right canine. The sample included 521 individuals (271 females and 250 males) aged from 18 to 70 years. After tracing and estimating the pulp/tooth area ratio (AR) a dental age was calculated. Afterwards, it has been compared with the chronological age of each patient. Regression models were developed for prediction of the chronological age. Statistical analysis was performed using the Statistica for Windows software (StatSoft).Results: The regression formula for the total group was as follows: age = 91.746 – 481.6 AR. The dental age calculated using these formulations highly correlated with the chronological age. Pearson’s correlation coefficient equalled - 0.844 for the whole group, r = - 0.873 in females and r = -0.815 in males. All correlations were statistically significant (t test p=0.00).Conclusions: Cameriere’s method can be used in evaluating the dental age in the adult Polish population using population specific formula. |
