Comparative assessment of chronological, dental, and skeletal age in children

Background: Age of a child can be assessed from various parameters such as chronological age, height, weight, secondary sexual characteristics, skeletal age, or dental age. The present study was planned to assess and compare chronological age with dental age (Demirjian's method and Willem's method) and skeletal age (Fishman's method). Materials and Methods: The present study was done on a sample of 100 children in the age group of 9–14 years. The chronological age was computed through the birth certificates and dental age was calculated from their orthopantomograms (OPGs) using Demirjian's and Willem's methods. Hand-wrist radiograph of the left hand was used to compute skeletal age using Fishman's method. Paired t-test and Pearson's correlation coefficients were calculated as a part of statistical analysis at a significance level of P < 0.01. Results: The mean chronological age among the group was 12.37 ± 1.34 years, the mean dental age by Demirjian's method was 12.36 ± 1.72 years, the mean dental age by Willem's method was 12.36 ± 1.51, and the mean skeletal age by Fishman's method was 13.03 ± 1.34 years. Out of the all methods evaluated in the study, Fishman's method of age estimation showed the least value of correlation coefficient (r = 0.728) with the chronological age, whereas Willem's method showed the maximum correlation with the chronological age (r = 0.885). Conclusion: It can be concluded from the present study that the dental age estimation evaluated by the digital OPG by both the methods, that is, Demirjian's method and Willem's method, has shown high accuracy when applied to the children of Faridabad. Skeletal maturation evaluated by Fishman's method using hand-wrist radiographs was found to overestimate the age when compared to chronological age in both the sexes.