The demirjian, willems, and cameriere methods were used to evaluate and compare the dental age of Turkish and Libyan children aged 7-14 years

Many changing human body parameters have been researched and compared to biological age in living humans, and human age prediction has been a subject of concern since documented history. Since it is applied to both the living and the deceased, age estimation is important in forensic odontology. In pediatric dentistry and orthodontics, the dental age (DA) is essential in determining the diagnosis and treatment plan. The aim of this study was to evaluate the accuracy of the Demirjian method (DM), Willems method (WM), and Cameriere method (CM) to Turkish and Libyan children because dental age assessment is considered appropriate in several countries. Compare Turkish and Libyan children's dental ages. A convenience sampling method was used in this retrospective cross-sectional observational study. The panoramic radiographs (ortopantographs) (OPTGs) of 300 Turkish children were selected from those who referred to Yeditepe University, Faculty of Dentistry, Pediatric Dentistry Clinics whose ages were between 7.0 and 14.9 years. The panoramic radiographs of 300 Libyan children were selected from the patient records who referred to the Pedodontic clinic at Al Hussein dental clinic in Tripoli, Libya whose ages were between 7.0 and 14.9 years. After a brief training phase, one examiner (M.A.) was responsible for the complete assessment of all radiographs. All mandibular teeth (except for the third molars) were scored using Demirjian et al system, as well as Willems and Cameriere's methods. All the recorded scores were statistically analyzed. The numerical variables were compared across two groups with using Mann Whitney U test or t-test, and three or more groups by Kruskal-Wallis test or ANOVA depending on their distribution. The assumption of normality was assessed with Shapiro Wilks' test in addition to visual inspections of QQ and PP plots. The Demirjian method overestimates the chronological age for both ethnicities. While Cameriere method underestimates the chronological age for Turkish group. Willlems method seems to have the closest estimate for chronological age for Turkish group. Willems seem to underestimate for Libyan while Cameriere seems to be the closest estimate for Libyan children. The use of the Demirjian procedure to estimate dental age in Turkish children resulted in an overestimation of chronological age. The use of the Willems method for estimating dental age for Libyan children led to the finding that Willems dental age works reasonably well in estimating chronological age for both Libyan and Turkish children.