Abstract

LOPES, Juliana Ribeiro  and  OLIVEIRA, Rogério Nogueira de. Dental age estimation methods under the point-of-view of evidence-based Dentistry. RPG, Rev. pós-grad. [online]. 2011, vol.18, n.3, pp. 170-175. ISSN 0104-5695.

Forensic Dentistry has a great social importance, since it helps to clarify frequent questions about the identity of individuals, be they dead or alive. As an adjunct, age estimation by teeth has become a topic widely studied by the dental community, originating several methods throughout the world. Therefore, this study aims to examine the articles on age estimates published in the last five years, from the point-of-view of evidence-based Dentistry, to verify if the most used methods are indicated based on good evidence. A search in the Medline database resulted in 163 articles, 49 of which were selected as the final sample. Twenty-one different methods have been reported in this sample, which Demirjian, Cameriere, Willems and development of third molars were the most frequent. The first one was studied two times more than the rest, at a frequency of 20.4%. The most frequent level of evidence was 2, which is considered satisfactory. However, we can conclude that the published works on age estimation by teeth could provide a higher level of evidence (level 1), in case it was taken into account all the characteristics that a high quality study must provide, such as samples of appropriate size and shape and complete statistical analysis.

Keywords : Forensic dentistry; Age determination by teeth; Evidence-based dentistry.