Department of Periodontics, Panineeya Institute of Dental Sciences and Research Centre, India.
Consultant Orthodontist, Hyderabad, India.
Med Sci Law. 2020 Oct;60(4):249-256. doi: 10.1177/0025802420936507. Epub 2020 Jul 5.
The age threshold of 14 years has become vital in proving legal violations involving children, particularly in cases of suspected child labour, child pornography and the minimum age of criminal responsibility. In recent years, there has been great interest in the evaluation of age in children and sub-adults using analysis of regressive changes in teeth, with a particular focus on age thresholds that are of medico-legal importance. This research aimed to compare the sensitivity and specificity of stages of root pulp visibility by Olze et al. in a sample of South Indian children aged between 12 and 16 years, with an age threshold of 14 years, using receiver operating characteristic curves and the area under the curve (AUC). Among the four stages of root pulp visibility, stage 2 showed the highest AUC in both female and male cohorts. For stage 2, lower sensitivity and higher specificity values were recorded, indicating the possibility of type II errors (i.e. false negatives). In both sexes, stage 2 had a higher AUC (i.e. 0.696 in females and 0.706 in males, respectively). Based on our findings, it can be concluded that this staging method in lower first molars is of limited value in indicating the legal age threshold of 14 years. Future research should validate the proposed approach in a larger sample and consider how to improve predictions in this area.
14 岁年龄门槛在证明涉及儿童的法律违规行为方面变得至关重要，特别是在涉嫌童工、儿童色情制品和刑事责任最低年龄方面。近年来，人们对使用牙齿退行性变化分析来评估儿童和未成年人的年龄非常感兴趣，特别是对具有医学法律重要性的年龄门槛。本研究旨在使用接收器操作特征曲线和曲线下面积 (AUC) 比较 Olze 等人在年龄为 12 至 16 岁的南印度儿童样本中，以 14 岁为年龄门槛，对根牙髓腔可见性阶段的敏感性和特异性。在根牙髓腔可见性的四个阶段中，女性和男性队列中阶段 2 的 AUC 最高。对于阶段 2，记录到较低的敏感性和较高的特异性值，表明存在第二类错误（即假阴性）的可能性。在两性中，阶段 2 的 AUC 更高（女性为 0.696，男性为 0.706）。根据我们的发现，可以得出结论，这种在低第一磨牙中的分期方法在指示 14 岁的法定年龄门槛方面价值有限。未来的研究应在更大的样本中验证所提出的方法，并考虑如何改善该领域的预测。
