Open AccessDental age estimation methods in adult dentitions: An overview
Author(s) -
Meenal Verma,
Nikhil Verma,
Rakhee Sharma,
Ashish Sharma
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
journal of forensic dental sciences
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 0975-2137
pISSN - 0975-1475
DOI - 10.4103/jfo.jfds_64_19
Subject(s) - forensic dentistry , forensic odontology , estimation , dentistry , population , age groups , medicine , orthodontics , demography , environmental health , engineering , systems engineering , sociology
Age estimation is one of the essential factors in human identification. Teeth bestowed with features such as hardness and resilience to external factors such as chemicals, putrefaction, and fire explosions serve as a durable source in age estimation. Concurrently, they present with peculiar and comparable features of age-associated regressive changes along with dental procedures, which make them a mirror reflection of age changes from cradle to the grave of an individual. Age estimation in adults poses an enigma to the forensic dentists because as the age advances, the dentitions get influenced by numerous exogenous and endogenous factors which may lead to discrepancies between dental age and chronologic age. Since 1950, many authors have presented various methods for assessing age of individuals above 18 years. Here is an overview of the different methods with their application and limitations along with a mention of newer methods developed and tested with the formulation of population-specific formulas by Indian authors. The data have been sourced from different journal articles retrieved through Google Scholar and PubMed Central and articles received as study materials during the fellowship program in forensic odontology using keywords such as age estimation, adult dentitions, dentin translucency, and cementum annulations.