title: Dental maturity of Saudi children: Role of ethnicity in age determination.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Demirjian's dental maturity scores and curves have been widely used for human age determination. Several authors have reported considerable differences between the true and estimated age based on the Demirjian curves, which have been accounted for by ethnicity. The purpose of the current study was to assess the role of ethnicity-specific dental maturation curves in age estimation of Saudi children.
  
  
  METHODS
  A sample of 452 healthy Saudi children aged 4 to 14 years were aged based on the original French-Canadian Demirjian curves and several modified Demirjian curves specified for certain ethnic groups: Saudi, Kuwaiti, Polish, Dutch, Pakistani, and Belgian. One-way ANOVA and a post hoc Scheffé's test were used to assess the differences between chronological age and dental age estimated by the different curves (P<0.05).
  
  
  RESULTS
  The curves designed for Dutch, Polish, Saudi, and Belgian (5th percentile) populations had a significantly lower error in estimating age than the original French-Canadian and Belgian (50th percentile) curves. The optimal curve for males was the Saudi one, with a mean absolute difference between estimated age and chronological age of 8.6 months. For females, the optimal curve was the Polish one, with a mean absolute difference of 7.4 months. It was revealed that accurate age determination was not related to certain ethnicity-specific curves.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  We conclude that ethnicity might play a role in age determination, but not a principal one.
authors.affiliation: Department of Preventive Dentistry, Riyadh Colleges of Dentistry and Pharmacy, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
authors.forename: Ziad D
authors.initials: ZD
authors.lastname: Baghdadi
keywords: Age Determination by Teeth; Child; Forensic Dentistry; Radiography, Panoramic