title: Dental and chronological age in children under oncological treatment.
abstract: The current oncology treatment has improved the survival of children with several types of cancer, and the effect of radiotherapy and/or chemotherapy treatment on dental maturation in comparison with chronological age is not widely known. The aim of this work was to evaluate and compare the impact of radiotherapy and/or chemotherapy treatment during dental maturation with chronological age in Chilean children diagnosed with cancer. Study Design was cross-sectional study on children diagnosed with different types of cancer and treated with radiotherapy and/or chemotherapy when they were ages of 0.1 to 13 years. Demirjian tables for both girls and boys are used to determine the dental age. The association between chronological and dental age was highly significant. Nevertheless, a linear relation between chronological and dental age was not observed when the data were stratified by BMI and type of treatment. This study confirmed that dental age is an indicator of chronological age but that other variables, such as body mass index, in children with cancer could be confounder variables. Thus, further studies are necessary to investigate the influence of BMI on tooth eruption/maturation in children under oncological treatment.
authors.affiliation: Department of Pediatric Dentistry, School of Dentistry, University of Concepción, Av Roosvelt 1550 Box Mail 160-C, Concepción, Chile.
authors.forename: Antonieta Pérez
authors.initials: AP
authors.lastname: Flores
authors.forename: Claudia Fierro
authors.initials: CF
authors.lastname: Monti
authors.forename: Mabel
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Brunotto
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000366:Age Determination by Teeth / Q000379:methods*; D015992:Body Mass Index; D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003430:Cross-Sectional Studies; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009369:Neoplasms / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000532:radiotherapy; D011862:Radiography, Panoramic; D014070:Tooth / Q000254:growth & development*; D014078:Tooth Eruption
keywords: chemotherapy; children; dental maturity; forensic science; oncological treatment; radiotherapy