Accuracy of the radiographic methods of Willems, Cameriere and Blenkin–Evans on age estimation for Turkish children in the northwest Anatolia region

Assessment of permanent teeth development in children with multiple persistent primary teeth

“…Willems modified the Demirjian method's scoring system by creating new tables [11], which was then used in studies comprising various populations and was reported to provide more accurate estimations than the original Demirjian method [13]. Willems method was also found appropriate for estimating the dental age of children from Eastern, Northwestern and Central Anatolia regions of Turkey [13][14][15]. Therefore, in this study, the Willems method was used for dental age estimation of children from the Aegean region of Turkey.…”

“…First, the CA of the children was calculated by subtracting their date of birth from the date of the panoramic radiographs, and the results were converted to decimal ages. Panoramic radiographs were examined for DA, and each tooth in the left lower quadrant (except the third molar) was scored according to Demirjian's criteria for radiomorphological development [14]. Corresponding Demirjian stages were derived from an evaluation of eight mineralization stages, alphabetically marked from A to H. The first stage A represents the beginning of calcification, seen at the superior level of the dental crypt, without fusion of this calcification, while the last stage H represents the finished calcification of the tooth with apical ends of the roots completely closed.…”

“…Corresponding Demirjian stages were derived from an evaluation of eight mineralization stages, alphabetically marked from A to H. The first stage A represents the beginning of calcification, seen at the superior level of the dental crypt, without fusion of this calcification, while the last stage H represents the finished calcification of the tooth with apical ends of the roots completely closed. For each stage, Demirjian [14] presented a specific self-weighted score, and the summed score on all seven teeth represented a dental maturity score that could be converted to dental age. DA was calculated according to Demirjian's criteria, but the developmental score was obtained from the sex-specific tables for each tooth defined by Willems et al [11] using a weighted Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) (Fig.…”

“…However, the results of several dental age (DA) estimation methods varied among different populations. One of the dental age methods, the Willems method, a modification of the Demirjian method, was found to be highly applicable in the Turkish population [10][11][12][13][14].…”

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“…Ozveren et al (1) reported that Cameriere's DA method underestimated the CA of children between the ages of 11 and 14 for both sexes with an average difference of 0.37 years for females and 0.18 years for males. In addition, Cameriere's open-apex DA estimation method was found to underestimate the CA between 10 to 14 years of both sexes in Turkish children by Gulsahi et al(8) (mean difference: 0.24 years for females and 0.47 years for males), Apaydın and Yasar (mean difference: 0.55 years for females and 0.60 years for males) (18) and Çarıkçıoğlu et al (19) (mean difference: 0.53 years for females and 0.48 years for males). In the current study, compared to the literature, Cameriere's DA method has caused an underestimation of children of both sexes between 13.00 and 14.99 years of age.…”