Si Xin-Qin, Chu Guang, Olze Andreas, Schmidt Sven, Schulz Ronald, Chen Teng, Pfeiffer Heidi, Guo Yu-Cheng, Schmeling Andreas
Key Laboratory of Shaanxi Province for Craniofacial Precision Medicine Research, College of Stomatology, Xi'an Jiaotong University, 98 XiWu Road, Xi'an, 710004, Shaanxi, People's Republic of China.
Department of Orthodontics, Stomatological Hospital of Xi'an Jiaotong University, 98 XiWu Road, Xi'an, 710004, Shaanxi, People's Republic of China.
Int J Legal Med. 2019 May;133(3):921-930. doi: 10.1007/s00414-019-02024-1. Epub 2019 Feb 21.
Regressive dental changes appear to be suitable for age assessment in living adults. In 2012, Olze et al. showed that several criteria presented by Gustafson for extracted teeth can also be applied to orthopantomograms. The objective of this study was to test the applicability and reliability of this method in a Chinese population. For this purpose, 1300 orthopantomograms of 650 female and 650 male Chinese aged between 15 and 40 years were evaluated. The characteristics of secondary dentin formation, periodontal recession, attrition, and cementum apposition were reviewed in all the mandibular premolars. The sample was split into a training and test dataset. Based on the training set, the correlation of the individual characteristics with chronological age was studied with a stepwise multiple regression analysis, in which individual characteristics formed the independent variable. According to the results, the R values amounted to 0.80 to 0.83; the standard error of estimate was 4.29 to 4.75 years. By analyzing the test dataset, the accuracy of the present study, Olze's and Timme's formulas were determined by the difference between the estimated dental age (DA) and chronological age (CA). Taking both mean differences and mean absolute differences into account, the Chinese age estimation formula did not always perform better compared with Olze's and Timme's formulas for both males and females. It was concluded that this method can be used in Chinese individuals for age assessment. However, the applicability of the method is limited by the quality of the X-ray images, and the method should only be applied by experienced forensic odontologists.
退行性牙齿变化似乎适用于对在世成年人进行年龄评估。2012年，奥尔泽等人表明，古斯塔夫森针对拔除牙齿提出的若干标准也可应用于曲面断层片。本研究的目的是测试该方法在中国人群中的适用性和可靠性。为此，对650名年龄在15至40岁之间的中国女性和650名中国男性的1300张曲面断层片进行了评估。对所有下颌前磨牙的继发性牙本质形成、牙周退缩、磨耗和牙骨质附着特征进行了检查。样本被分为训练数据集和测试数据集。基于训练集，采用逐步多元回归分析研究个体特征与实际年龄的相关性，其中个体特征构成自变量。结果显示，R值为0.80至0.83；估计标准误差为4.29至4.75岁。通过分析测试数据集，根据估计的牙龄（DA）与实际年龄（CA）之间的差异确定了本研究、奥尔泽公式和蒂姆公式的准确性。综合考虑平均差异和平均绝对差异，中国年龄估计公式在男性和女性中并不总是比奥尔泽公式和蒂姆公式表现更好。得出的结论是，该方法可用于中国个体的年龄评估。然而，该方法的适用性受到X线图像质量的限制，并且该方法应由经验丰富的法医牙科学专家应用。
