Age estimation from third molar teeth in an urban population of North India

Abstract

Identification of age reliably is one of the challenging arena and has multitude significance in civil and criminal issues. Among the  many available ways dentition is most commonly used but most of the dentition is complete by early teens except for third molar.  Clinically as well as radiologically third molar eruption can be used for estimation between middle teens and adults, third molar age  estimation takes a significant role. In this study 280 students between 14-28 years of age from various academic institutions of Rohtak,  Haryana were subjected to clinical and radiological examination to estimate dental age by stages of eruption clinically and  Orthopantogram of third molar. Females were found to have higher number of unerupted third molar in comparison to males. Higher  number of subjects had unerupted tooth in age less than 18 years. The mean age for partially erupted teeth for males and females lies in  the range of 17.83 – 18.40 years and 16.9-18 years respectively and for completely erupted teeth was 21.07-21.87 years and  21.03 - 21.64 years for males and females respectively. Earliest mean age for eruption of third molar for males was 14 years while for  females was 14.88 years. The study concluded earlier eruption of third molar in male to female and there was statistically significant  positive linear relationship seen among the four quadrants and dental age.