Dental Age: Effects of Estimating Different Events During Mineralization

Abstract

The extent of tooth mineralization affords a practical method for assessing an individual's biological age. Dental age is useful for evaluating a child's growth status, and for assessing the ages of subjects in anthropological, forensic, and medicolegal settings. Historically, some data have been collected from serial studies (e.g., Stuart's Harvard Study, and the Burlington Study) while most studies are cross-sectional, where each child is examined just once. Serial and cross-sectional studies traditionally have been used to estimate different sorts of information, namely the onset at a stage and the average age in a stage, respectively. This paper discusses the differences of the analyses, and then presents an empirical comparison of two large sets of data on the lower third molar in American whites, showing how the conventional uses of serial data - that estimate the onset of an event - precede the age of occurrence derived from cross-sectional data (age at stage). Inter-group differences for tooth stages can exceed one year, so it is important to recognize the nature of the 'standards' available in the literature.