AGE ESTIMATION IN CHILDREN USING THE ERUPTION OF SECOND PERMANENT MOLARS

C. Funieru, O. Amza, M. Chirilă, A. Bencze, A. Băluţă, B. Dimitriu, S. M. Piţuru

Abstract: The age assessment is very important in forensic or in case of people who do not own an identification document. The age estimation based on teeth eruption may be a good method. This study was developed on a 1595 sample of schoolchildren aged 11 to 14 years from Bucharest. The main goal of this research was to analyze the eruption of the second molars and find some clinical principles for the age estimation. An eruption index (EI) with four successive distinct scores (0, 1, 2 and 3) was adapted and used in order to correlate the age with stages of the eruption of second molars. The EI mean values (± SE) for the entire sample were the following: 1.97 (± 0.03) for the right upper molar, 2.03 (± 0.03) for the left upper molar, 2.25 (± 0.03) for the left lower molar and 2.29 (± 0.03) for the right lower molar. There were many significant differences for the girls and boys as well, between the different age groups (p < 0.05).
Keywords: age estimation, molar, eruption, child, schools