Applicability of Willem’s Method of Dental Age Assessment in 14 Years Threshold Children in South India - A Pilot Study Ekta Priya * Department of Pedodontics & Preventive Dentistry, Asan Memorial Dental College & Hospital, Kanchipuram District, Tamil Nadu, India * Corresponding author: Ekta Priya, MDS, DipFHID, Department of Pedodontics & Preventive Dentistry, Asan Memorial Dental College & Hospital, Asan Nagar, Keerapakkam, Oragadam Main Road, Kanchipuram District, Tamil Nadu, India, Tel: +919566404435; E-mail: ekta.priya@hotmail.com Rec date: August 13, 2015 Acc date: September 10, 2015 Pub date: September 16, 2015 Copyright: © 2015 Priya E. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Abstract Age plays an important role in various fields such as forensic science, various social and legal settings and treatment planning in clinical dentistry. Children with undocumented birth date are vulnerable to violation of various child rights. This pilot study aimed to test the applicability of Willem’s method of dental age assessment at the threshold of 14 years considering prohibition of employment of children. The sample consisted of 30 males and 30 females. The dental age estimation was performed by two blinded examiners using Willem’s method. The accuracy of Willem’s method of age assessment was measured by the difference between the chronological age and estimated dental age. It was seen that there was underestimation of age in both males and females. The difference in females and males were -0.29 years and -0.23 years respectively. The scores of dental maturation described by Willems may be suitable for South Indian children. Keywords: Age estimation; Dental age; Willem’s method; South India children; Child labour Introduction he age of a person can be determined by the degree of maturation of the diferent tissue systems of an individual [1]. Osteogenic and Odontogenic tissues have been successfully used to determine age of individuals with unknown birth records [2,3] Age plays an important role in various ields such as forensic science, various social and legal settings and treatment planning in clinical dentistry [4]. In 2010 UNICEF reported only 41% of children were registered at birth in India. hese children with undocumented birth date are vulnerable to violation of various child rights. One of such violations can be commonly noticed in situations of child labours. As per the National Sample Survey Organization result, the estimated total number of working children was 4.98 million children in the age group of 5-14 in India. Prohibition of employment of children’s in factories in constitution of India, Article 24 states that no child below the age 14 years shall be employed in work in any factory or mine or engaged in any other hazardous employment [5-7]. Considering the magnitude of child labour in India, it necessary to identify these vulnerable children and provide the best accurate method of estimating the unknown age. Estimating age from teeth is considered to be reliable, as maturational events associated with tooth formation are less variable [8,9]. Assessment of tooth development to estimate the age of living subjects was irst used in 19th century industrial revolution in England. he presence of the irst permanent molar was a sign that a child had attained six years of age and such children were condemned to work in the coal mines [10,11]. Dental age assessment can be quantiied using various methods such as crown root measurements, tooth eruption mouth, and radiographic analysis of stages of tooth formation. A number of studies have been carried out to identify the most appropriate and precise method to estimate dental age [12]. he tooth development stages described by Demirjian et al. is considered the most simple and reliable method as it has the highest values for both intra- and inter-observer agreement [13]. Hence, this method has been widely tested among numerous population groups across the globe [1,14-18]. In 2001, Willems et al. evaluated the accuracy of Demirjian's method in Belgian Caucasian population and modiied the scoring system when a signiicant overestimation was reported [19]. his modiied method calculated the overall maturity score by summing the adapted scores for the seven mandibular teeth which presented the result directly as estimated age of the individual. his modiication has been evaluated among various population and has been reported to be more accurate than the original Demirjian’s method [20-22]. his pilot study aims to test the applicability of Willem’s method in South Indian children at the threshold of 14 years of age. Materials and Methods he panoramic radiographs were obtained from the Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Radiology, Saveetha Dental College & Hospital. he data consisted of 30 panoramic radiographs of boys and 30 panoramic radiographs of girls aged between 13-15 years. he panoramic radiographs had been taken previously for routine diagnostic purpose from the period between August 2014 to November 2014. Selection criteria • Children without any known developmental, endocrinal or nutritional disorders afecting growth • Children between 13 to 15 years of age • he presence of all the seven let or right mandibular permanent teeth present (erupted or not) • Children of South Indian descendants from parents of same ethnicity Forensic Research Priya, J Forensic Res 2015, S4:2 http://dx.doi.org/10.4172/2157-7145.1000S4-002 Research Article Open Access J Forensic Res Forensic Science & Technology ISSN:2157-7145 JFR, an open access journal