Age assessment in the living using modified Gustafson’s criteria in a northern Chinese population

Regressive dental changes appear to be suitable for age assessment in living adults. In 2012, Olze et al. showed that several criteria presented by Gustafson for extracted teeth can also be applied to orthopantomograms. The objective of this study was to test the applicability and reliability of this method in a Chinese population. For this purpose, 1300 orthopantomograms of 650 female and 650 male Chinese aged between 15 and 40 years were evaluated. The characteristics of secondary dentin formation, periodontal recession, attrition, and cementum apposition were reviewed in all the mandibular premolars. The sample was split into a training and test dataset. Based on the training set, the correlation of the individual characteristics with chronological age was studied with a stepwise multiple regression analysis, in which individual characteristics formed the independent variable. According to the results, the R values amounted to 0.80 to 0.83; the standard error of estimate was 4.29 to 4.75 years. By analyzing the test dataset, the accuracy of the present study, Olze’s and Timme’s formulas were determined by the difference between the estimated dental age (DA) and chronological age (CA). Taking both mean differences and mean absolute differences into account, the Chinese age estimation formula did not always perform better compared with Olze’s and Timme’s formulas for both males and females. It was concluded that this method can be used in Chinese individuals for age assessment. However, the applicability of the method is limited by the quality of the X-ray images, and the method should only be applied by experienced forensic odontologists.