The applicability of dental age estimation based on the staging and atlas approaches in Indonesian children and adolescents

Accurate age estimation holds paramount importance across various fields, encompassing forensic sciences, civil law, and the medicolegal domain. The applicability of the staging and atlas method for calculating dental age in Indonesian children and adolescents was assessed for this purpose. This study encompassed 104 orthopantomographs from outpatients (54 males and 50 females, aged 5-18 years) at the Airlangga University Dental Hospital in Surabaya, Indonesia. An analysis was conducted to determine the significance of the difference and the correlation between chronological age (CA) and estimated dental age (EDA). The findings unveiled a robust correlation between CA and EDA, with correlation coefficients surpassing 0.9 for both approaches. Although the London Atlas method exhibited a marginally lower Mean Absolute Error (MAE) of 0.81 years in comparison to the Nolla method’s MAE of 0.88 years, the difference between the two was deemed insignificant. The outcomes of this study provide valuable insights into the utility of the Nolla and London Atlas methods for estimating dental age among Indonesian youth. However, it is imperative to note that further investigations are warranted to validate these findings and to ascertain the generalizability of these methods across diverse populations.