Dental age table for a sample of Pakistani children

The aim of this study was to evaluate the applicability of Demirjian's dental age assessment table in a sample of Southern Pakistani population and, if not applicable, to formulate a separate dental age table for Pakistani males and females. The study was conducted on the dental pantomographs of a sample size of 882 subjects (427 males and 455 females) ranging in age from 7 to 14 years. A paired t-test was used to assess any difference between chronological age and dental age assessed according to Demirjian's method. Logit function was used to make the relationship between dental maturity and chronological age and linear regression analysis with the equation X = [Ln {y/100 - y} - a]/b was used to generate dental age tables for Pakistani males and females. Dental age assessed according to Demirjian's method for this male sample was over-predicted in the 7 year and 11-15 year age group (P < 0.05). In the female sample, there was an over-prediction in all the age groups (P < 0.05). Statistically significant differences were found in chronological and dental age assessed by Demirjian's method for Pakistani males and females and thus, a new table was generated to convert dental maturity calculated according to Demirjian's method into dental age for the population.