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Articles » Odontology
Tooth Wear and Age Estimation
Dagmara Grabowska
Teeth, an aid to forensic scientists all over the world, have a wonderful quality: they do not disintegrate easily. They can often be preserved longer than bones! A test of the correctness of a latest scoring system in documenting tooth wear for age estimation involved dental stone casts of 383 volunteers who had normal premolars and molars with normal occlusion (the alignment of the teeth of the upper and lower jaws when brought together). The stage of occlusal wear for all premolar and molar teeth was scored with the new system. There was a positive correlation between the degree of tooth wear and age in each and every examined tooth of both sexes. The system devised by Young-Ku Kim and others provided estimation of an individual's age within +/- 3 years in 42.4 % of males and 49.4 % of females, within +/- 5 years in 61.8 % of males and 63.3 % of females.
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occlusal
- f or relating to occlusions of the teeth, especially the chewing or biting surfaces
Kim Y-K, Kho H-S, Lee K-H. Age estimation by occlusal tooth wear. J Forensic Sci 2000; 45(2) : 303-309.
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