Kar May Loke, Mei Shian Arlene Yu, Durward Callum, Jayaraman Jayakumar
School of Dentistry, International Medical University, Kuala Lumpur, 57000, Malaysia.
Department of Paediatric Dentistry, Faculty of Dentistry, University of Puthisastra, Phnom Penh, 12211, Cambodia.
Heliyon. 2020 Feb 24;6(2):e03476. doi: 10.1016/j.heliyon.2020.e03476. eCollection 2020 Feb.
A growing number of Cambodian children without legal documentary evidence of date of birth are vulnerable to exploitation. This study aimed to evaluate the applicability of southern Chinese reference dataset for dental age estimation on Cambodian children and young adults of different socioeconomic status. Dental panoramic tomographs (DPT) of 371 Cambodian children and young adults belonging to lower and higher socioeconomic status (SES) groups were analyzed. All the left maxillary and mandibular permanent teeth including the third molars were scored based on Demirjian's classification of tooth development stages. Chronological age (CA) was calculated from the date of birth and date of exposure of radiograph. The mean age of attainment for each stage of development was obtained from the southern Chinese reference dataset. Dental age (DA) was calculated by averaging the mean age scores for all the teeth. Paired t-test and correlation analysis were conducted to measure associations between the chronological age and the dental age for males and females in the lower and higher socio-economic status groups. Underestimation of age was observed in both SES groups using the southern Chinese reference dataset. For the higher SES group, the difference between the chronological and dental age (CA-DA) was 0.26 years for females and 0.11 years for males. The difference was statistically significant only in females (p < 0.05). In the low SES group, the results showed a difference of 0.07 years in females and 0.01 years in males; the differences were not statistically significant in both sexes (p > 0.05). A strong correlation was observed between the CA and DA in both sex and SES groups ranging from 0.969 to 0.988 (p < 0.05). The southern Chinese dental reference dataset can be used to estimate the age of undocumented Cambodian male and female children and young adults of both higher and lower SES.
越来越多没有合法出生证明文件的柬埔寨儿童容易受到剥削。本研究旨在评估中国南方参考数据集在柬埔寨不同社会经济地位的儿童和青年中进行牙龄估计的适用性。对371名柬埔寨儿童和青年的牙科全景体层摄影（DPT）进行了分析，这些儿童和青年分属于社会经济地位较低和较高（SES）的群体。根据德米尔坚牙齿发育阶段分类法，对所有左上颌和下颌恒牙（包括第三磨牙）进行评分。根据出生日期和X线片拍摄日期计算实足年龄（CA）。从中国南方参考数据集中获取每个发育阶段的平均达成年龄。通过计算所有牙齿的平均年龄得分来计算牙龄（DA）。进行配对t检验和相关性分析以测量社会经济地位较低和较高群体中男性和女性的实足年龄与牙龄之间的关联。使用中国南方参考数据集时，在两个SES组中均观察到年龄低估。对于社会经济地位较高的组，女性的实足年龄与牙龄之差（CA - DA）为0.26岁，男性为0.11岁。仅在女性中差异具有统计学意义（p < 0.05）。在社会经济地位较低的组中，结果显示女性差异为0.07岁，男性为0.01岁；在两性中差异均无统计学意义（p > 0.05）。在性别和SES组中，CA和DA之间均观察到强相关性，范围从0.969至0.988（p < 0.05）。中国南方牙参考数据集可用于估计柬埔寨社会经济地位较高和较低的未登记男女儿童及青年的年龄。
