Dental Age Assessment in Children: A Comparison of Four Methods in a Recent French Population

The aim of this study was to analyze the accuracy and the reliability of four methods of dental age estimation ( D emirjian, W illems I, W illems II, and C haillet standards) in a French population. Orthopantomograms of 743 children aged between 4 and 15 years were used. The Demirjian standards gave a consistent overestimation of dental age compared with chronological age (+0.45 and +0.46 years for girls and boys, respectively). We found that three modified methods were more accurate for both sexes than D emirjian's method: the W illems I method appeared to be more suitable when the sex and ethnicity are both known (−0.09 and +0.14 years for girls and boys, respectively); the W illems II method was more accurate for children of unknown sex (mean difference = 0.00 years), and the C haillet method was found to be more accurate than the D emirjian method, but less accurate than the W illems I method (−0.59 and −0.18 years for girls and boys, respectively).