The Role and Significance of Dental Development Atlas in Age Estimation

Atlases visualizing the development and eruption of teeth are used for age estimation in dentistry practices and in forensic sciences. This method is very practical and provides a big advantage, since it can be utilized both for living individuals and for corpses. It is especially useful and effective in identification studies during disasters with many victims. This study is a validation study of a tooth development atlas created for juvenile citizens of the Turkish Republic. Eighty panoramic teeth graphs of 5 to 22-year-old individuals with known age and sex were obtained from an imaging center within ethical principles under the condition that their personal information will be kept clandestine. The eruption and development phases of the teeth in each graph were assessed using the atlas method to estimate the age. It was found that age estimation for all graphs at and below 14 years-of-age was made with 95% accuracy with ±1 error margin and for those between 14-22 years-of-age was made with 92.5% accuracy with ±2 error margin from the data of juvenile citizens of the Turkish Republic. Obtained results suggested that the tooth development atlas created by Karadayı et al. is useful and practical for forensic age estimation and identification studies of victims of mass disasters.