Chaillet's International Scores for Age Estimation in Croatian Children
Dental age estimation in children plays an important role in forensic dentistry. The most wide used method for age estimation developed by Demirjian in 1973 on French-Canadian sample generally overestimates dental age in many population. Chaillet's international maturity scores were formed to obtain a predicted age with more confidence when ethnical origin was not available. The aim of this study is to evaluate the accuracy of Chaillet's international scores for the dental age assessment in Croatian children. Methods: panoramic radiographs of 1475 children, 805 girls and 670 boys, from 4.79 to 14.92 years, were assessed using Chaillet's international maturity tables and curves. The dental age was compared to the chronological age through a paired t-test for both genders separately. Mean overestimation using Chaillet's international maturity scores were 0.19±0.77 year for girls (P<0.001) and 0.50±0.83 year for boys (P<0.001). Absolute accuracy of residuals between dental and chronological age were 0.63(0.48) years for girls (Median: 0.54 year) and 0.75(0.60) years for boys (Median: 0.62 year). Polynomial compound formula was recommended to predict dental age with more accuracy for results of international maturity scores in Croatian children.