Comparison of Skeletal Maturity and Dental Maturity - A Radiographic Assessment

Age determination plays a great role in forensic medicine, pediatric endocrinology and is of particular interest in orthodontic and pedodontic treatment planning. The classical and most widely used method for skeletal-age evaluation is the highly reliable hand-wrist bone analysis performed by radiographs. However, this analysis entails exposure to ionizing radiation in addition to the routine radiographic records required for an orthodontic patient. Hence we propose to study the cervical vertebrae at various stages of maturation and establish its validity and reliability in skeletal age estimation and correlate it with the dental and chronological age of the patients, and thereby eradicate the use of an additional radiograph. The aim of this study is to compare the accuracy between the skeletal maturation in lateral cephalograms and dental maturity in OPG in assessing the age of the patients. Digital panoramic radiographs and lateral cephalograms of 53 patients (26 boys and 27 girls ranging from 8 to 16 years of age) were examined. Dental maturity was assessed by calcification stages of the left mandibular incisors, canines, first and second premolars, and first and second molars; whereas skeletal maturity was estimated by the shapes of the cervical vertebrae by using the cervical vertebral maturation (CVM) stages. The spearman rank-order correlation coefficient between dental maturity and cervical vertebral maturity was .763 and .792 for males and females respectively (p< 0.05). The spearman rank order correlation between skeletal age and chronological age is 80.8 and 78.6 respectively (p<0.05). In conclusion it can be said that tooth calcification stage was significantly correlated with cervical vertebral maturation stage. The skeletal and dental ages had significant correlation with the chronological age. Therefore, it is practical to consider the relationship between dental and skeletal maturity when assessing age of an individual in the age group of 8-16 years.