Estimation of age in the living municipal employees in the age group of 25-45 years by physical and radiological examination.

Employees from government and local self-government bodies come to Departments of Forensic Medicine for age estimation for the purpose of permanent employment. According to the rules and regulations of the Municipal Corporation of Greater Mumbai (MCGM) and court orders, they are confirmed as permanent employees after a specified duration of temporary service. The age criterion is very important as regards their dates of retirement and service benefits. But because of low socioeconomic status & illiteracy, most of these employees have no documentary evidence of their birth dates. Their age, therefore, remains a mystery to be solved. The human body develops very fast in the first 20 years of life, but growth slows thereafter. There is precious little information on the estimation of age in the later years, resulting in the lack of reliable methods for this purpose. A sincere attempt to arrive at a fairly conclusive range of age with respect to changes in physical features, especially graying of hair, wrinkling of skin and radiological evaluations of fusion of components of the sternum and changes in the teeth and mandible with respect to mandibular canal seen in an oral orthopantomogram was contemplated.

The intriguing shadow.

In the field of radiodiagnosis shadows often raise doubts. On these depend the invasive investigative procedures which lead to the final diagnosis. The radiologist's word is often considered as the last word in labeling a lesion. The treatment protocol which follows makes a world of a difference to the patient. We report interesting cases where the patients were radiographed prior to orthodontic treatment and coincidentally we found-un believable hidden treasure! This is a modest attempt to emphasize that each shadow in a radiograph should be scrutinized. Needless to say, the keen observation and experience of the diagnostician is of penultimate importance in deciphering the abnormal from the normal.