LAUSR

ABSTRACT Age estimation is vital for both clinical and forensic reasons. An eight-tooth method was developed by Chaillet and Demirjian to estimate dental age of children and adolescents. The aim of the current study was to investigate the applicability of Chaillet and Demirjian’s scores for the Malaysian Chinese aged 5–18 years. A total of 1228 dental panoramic tomographs were examined. The difference between Chronological Age (CA) and the Dental Age (DA) calculated using the Chaillet and Demirjian’s dental maturity scores was compared using the paired t-test. The DA was generally underestimated. The average difference between CA and DA ranged from +1.55 to +2.34 years for boys and +2.18 to +4.10 years for girls. Consequently, CA and DA did not have acceptable correspondence. Therefore, a prediction model from Demirjian’s scores was established using an Artificial Neural Networks (ANN) computational approach to develop new dental maturity scores. The new scores showed a more accurate estimation of age and the difference between CA and DA was −0.05 ± 0.92 years for boys and −0.06 ± 1.11 years for girls. Moreover, the differences were statistically not significant. The new dental maturity scores could therefore be used to estimate the age of Malaysian Chinese children and adolescents.