Applicability of Demirjian's method of age assessment in children of Davangere.

The assessment of age is an important facet in providing information in demographic studies and is of clinical use to diagnose and plan the treatment. The objective of this study was to determine whether the standards of dental maturation given by Demirjian et al are applicable to Davangere children and to assess the relationship between the obtained dental age and skeletal age. The study group comprised of 151 healthy children of 6-15 years age. It was found that Davangere children were dentally more advanced. Demirjians method gave an over estimation of 1.20 +/- 1.02 years and 0.90 +/- 0.87 years in males and females respectively. The obtained dental age was found to be different from the skeletal age. It may be concluded that Demirjians method of dental maturation is not applicable to the children of Davangere.