Assessment of Skeletal Age Using Hand-Wrist Radiographs following Bjork System

Machine learning and regression analysis for age estimation from the iliac crest based on computed tomographic explorations in an Indian population

Age estimation constitutes an integral parameter of identification. In children, sub-adults, and young adults, accurate age estimation is vital on various aspects of civil, criminal, and immigration law. The iliac crest presents as a suitable age marker within these age cohorts, and the modified Risser method constitutes a relatively novel and unexplored method for iliac crest age estimation. The present study attempted to ascertain the applicability of this modified method for age estimation in the Indian population, an aspect previously unexplored, through computed tomographic examination of the iliac crest. Computed tomography scans of consenting individuals undergoing routine examinations of the pelvis/ abdomen for various clinically indicated reasons were collected and scored using the modified Risser stages. Computed tomographic examinations of the iliac crest indicate that the recalibrated method accurately depicts the temporal progression of ossification and fusion changes. Different regression and machine learning models were subsequently derived and/or trained to evaluate the accuracy and precision associated with the method. Amongst the ten regression models derived herein, compound regression exhibited the lowest inaccuracy (4.78 years) and root mean squared error values (5.46 years). Machine learning yielded further reduced error rates, with decision tree regression achieving inaccuracy and root mean squared error values of 1.88 years and 2.28 years, respectively. A comparative evaluation of error computations obtained from regression analysis and machine learning illustrates the statistical superiority of machine learning for forensic age estimation. Error computations obtained with machine learning suggest that the modified Risser method is capable of permitting reliable age estimation within criminal and civil proceedings.

Is hand-wrist radiography still necessary in orthodontic treatment planning?

OBJECTIVES

The aim of our study is to compare the relationship between hand-wrist and cervical vertebra maturation stages with chronological age and to investigate the effect of malocclusion type on the relationship between these methods.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Hand-wrist and cephalometric radiographs of 1000 patients (526 females, 474 males) with a mean age of 13.41 ± 1.83 were analyzed. The methods of Bacetti et al. were used for the cervical vertebra maturation stage, and Björk, Grave and Brown's methods were used for the hand-wrist maturation stage. One-way ANOVA test was applied to compare skeletal classes between them. Tukey post hoc test was used to determine the differences. The relationship between the malocclusion type, cervical vertebra and hand-wrist maturation stages was evaluated with the Spearman correlation test.

RESULTS

Spearman's correlation coefficient was 0.831, 0.831 and 0.760 in Class I, II and III females, respectively. In males, it was calculated as 0.844, 0.889 and 0.906, respectively. When sex and malocclusion were not differentiated, the correlation was found to be 0.887. All were statistically significant (P < 0.001). The highest correlation was observed in class III males, while the lowest was found in class III females.

CONCLUSION

Cervical vertebrae can be used safely to assess pubertal spurt without hand-wrist radiography. Diagnosing growth and development stages from cephalometric images is important in reducing additional workload and preventing radiation risk.

Correlation between the middle phalanx of the third finger skeletal maturation staging system and insulin-like growth factor-1 levels among Indian children - A 3-year longitudinal study

INTRODUCTION

Tracking insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) level alongside the middle phalanx of the third finger (MP3) staging modification could provide valuable insights into the relationship between hormonal factors and skeletal maturation during different stages of growth. Longitudinal studies indeed play a crucial role in understanding these complex relationships over time, allowing for a more comprehensive assessment of how IGF-1 might serve as a marker for pubertal growth stages.

METHODOLOGY

The present longitudinal prospective cohort study was done among 26 boys and 26 girls. For each child, once in every 6 months for 3 years, blood samples (to estimate IGF-1 level) and X-rays of the left hand middle finger were taken. DRG IGF-1 600 Human Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay kit was used for the quantitative measurement of IGF1 from serum. The MP3 stages of the middle phalanx of the middle finger were evaluated using a modified MP3 system. The collected data were subjected to suitable descriptive and inferential statistics.

RESULTS

The mean IGF1 levels were significantly higher in girls compared to boys across all the stages of MP3 skeletal maturity indicators. However, in both boys and girls, IGF-1 levels showed increasing trends from Stage F to H where it peaked and showed deceleration to Stage I (P < 0.05).

CONCLUSION

The observed increase in serum IGF-1 levels during pubertal stages, followed by a decline in late puberty, aligning with the stages of skeletal maturation, suggests a close relationship between hormonal changes and bone development.

Accuracy of Demirjian’s and Cameriere’s Methods for Age Estimation in 6- to 10-Year-Old Iranian Children Using Panoramic Radiographs

Objective

This study assessed the accuracy of Demirjian's and Cameriere's methods for age estimation in Iranian children using panoramic radiographs.

Materials and Methods

This cross-sectional study evaluated 212 panoramic radiographs of 6- to 10-year-old children retrieved from the archives of an oral and maxillofacial radiology department from 2011 to 2017. The chronological age of children at the time of radiography was determined by subtracting the date of radiography from their birth date. The developmental stage of 7 permanent left mandibular teeth was determined according to Demirjian's method. The stage of dental maturation was determined according to Cameriere's method by using the normalized values for 7 permanent left mandibular teeth and the number of teeth with complete root development. The error value of the two methods was calculated by comparing them with the actual chronological age of male and female children, and the absolute error values of the two methods were compared with paired t-tests.

Results

The mean error value of Demirjian's and Cameriere's methods was found to be 0.84 and −0.06 in girls and 0.93 and 0.04 in boys, respectively. Significant differences were noted in the absolute error of the two methods compared with the chronological age of male and female children (both Ps < 0.001).

Conclusion

In conclusion, this study indicated that Cameriere's method was more accurate than Demirjian's method for age estimation in Iranian children.

Development of a multi-stage model for intelligent and quantitative appraising of skeletal maturity using cervical vertebras cone-beam CT images of Chinese girls

PURPOSE

Nowadays, the integration of Artificial intelligence algorithms and quantified radiographic imaging-based diagnostic procedures is hailing amplified deliberation particularly in assessment of skeletal maturity. So we intend to formulate a logistic regression model for intelligent and quantitative estimation of Fishman skeletal maturation index (SMI) based on the parameters attained from the cervical vertebrae CBCT images of Chinese girls.

METHODS

From 709 hand wrist radiographs and CBCT images, 447 samples were randomly selected (called as G1) to build a logistic regression model. The reliability and reproducibility were assessed by the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) and weighted Cohen's kappa, followed by Spearman's rank correlation coefficient to identify the parameters significantly associated with the SMI. Two hundred and sixty-two other subjects (named G2) were recruited for external examination of the models by direct visual comparison and the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve. In cases of confusion and mispredictions, the model was modified to improve the consistency.

RESULTS

Five significant parameters (Chronological age, C3 height (H3)[Formula: see text], C4 upper width (UW4), C4 lower width (LW4), and the ratio of posterior height to lower width of C4 ([Formula: see text]) were administered into logistic regression model. Despite total agreement percentage which was 84% (total AUC = 0.92), unsatisfactory performance was noticed for the 6th and 8th stages which were confused with their neighboring stages. After adjustments of the models, the total agreement percentage and AUC were upgraded to 88% and 0.96, respectively.

CONCLUSION

Consistency and fitness evaluation of our models demonstrated adequate prediction percentage and reliability for automated classification of skeletal maturation. The presented constructed logistic regression model has the potential to serve as a maturity evaluation index in clinical craniofacial orthopedics in Chinese girls. The proposed model in this study showed promising strength for being expended in the event of other clinical multi-stage conditions.

Machine learning assisted Cameriere method for dental age estimation

Background

Recently, the dental age estimation method developed by Cameriere has been widely recognized and accepted. Although machine learning (ML) methods can improve the accuracy of dental age estimation, no machine learning research exists on the use of the Cameriere dental age estimation method, making this research innovative and meaningful.

Aim

The purpose of this research is to use 7 lower left permanent teeth and three models [random forest (RF), support vector machine (SVM), and linear regression (LR)] based on the Cameriere method to predict children's dental age, and compare with the Cameriere age estimation.

Subjects and methods

This was a retrospective study that collected and analyzed orthopantomograms of 748 children (356 females and 392 males) aged 5–13 years. Data were randomly divided into training and test datasets in an 80–20% proportion for the ML algorithms. The procedure, starting with randomly creating new training and test datasets, was repeated 20 times. 7 permanent developing teeth on the left mandible (except wisdom teeth) were recorded using the Cameriere method. Then, the traditional Cameriere formula and three models (RF, SVM, and LR) were used to estimate the dental age. The age prediction accuracy was measured by five indicators: the coefficient of determination (R²), mean error (ME), root mean square error (RMSE), mean square error (MSE), and mean absolute error (MAE).

Results

The research showed that the ML models have better accuracy than the traditional Cameriere formula. The ME, MAE, MSE, and RMSE values of the SVM model (0.004, 0.489, 0.392, and 0.625, respectively) and the RF model (− 0.004, 0.495, 0.389, and 0.623, respectively) were lower with the highest accuracy. In contrast, the ME, MAE, MSE and RMSE of the European Cameriere formula were 0.592, 0.846, 0.755, and 0.869, respectively, and those of the Chinese Cameriere formula were 0.748, 0.812, 0.890 and 0.943, respectively.

Conclusions

Compared to the Cameriere formula, ML methods based on the Cameriere’s maturation stages were more accurate in estimating dental age. These results support the use of ML algorithms instead of the traditional Cameriere formula.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12903-021-01996-0.

The Correlation between Dental Stages and Skeletal Maturity Stages

Introduction

The determination of skeletal maturity stages is very important in orthodontic treatment planning, especially skeletal discrepancies in growing individuals. A hand-wrist radiograph is considered the most accurate approach for skeletal maturity detection. Dental calcification stages have been suggested as an alternative diagnostic method to decrease radiation exposure. The recent study is aimed at detecting the efficacy of dental calcification stages in assessing skeletal maturity during the prepubertal and pubertal growth periods.

Methods

Patients' records were collected from the Aleppo Orthodontic Center. Dental maturity stages were assessed from a panoramic radiograph using the Demirjian method, while skeletal maturity stages were determined using the Björk method. Four permanent left mandibular teeth were included (canine, 1st premolar, 2nd premolar, and 2nd molar) for the study.

Results

From 517 records, 295 records (145 males and 150 females) were included. The Spearman rank-order correlation coefficients between skeletal maturation and dental maturation were strong and statistically significant (ranging from 0.789 to 0.835). The highest correlation was between skeletal stages and the second molar (r = 0.829 and 0.88 in males and females, respectively). Receiver operating characteristic (ROC ) curve suggested a high validity of the sum of dental stages for the four teeth in identifying MP3= stage (sensitivity was 70%, specificity was 92.77%, and ROC area was 0.81) but not for MP3cap (sensitivity was 50.85%, specificity was 81.36%, and ROC area was 0.66).

Conclusions

The correlation between the skeletal maturity stages and the dental calcification stages was high. The orthodontist can use the dental stages as a definite diagnostic tool for prepubertal growth period.

Supernumerary Teeth and Dental Development

PURPOSE

The aims of this study were to compare the radiographic development of permanent teeth in a group of children with and without supernumerary teeth (ST), determine whether using cone-beam computed tomography or panoramic radiography improves the accuracy of dental age (DA) estimation and investigate the effects of factors including the numbers and positions of ST.

METHODS

One hundred fifty dental radiographs of children with and without ST at the ages of 6.0 to 14.9 years were included in this study. The children in both groups were age and sex-matched. The lower left-side 7 permanent teeth were evaluated according to the Demirjian method, DA was determined. The difference between chronological age (CA) and DA (CA-DA) for the children with and without ST and further based on the number and localization of ST were calculated.

RESULTS

For all groups, the mean DA values were higher than the mean CA values. The difference between the CA and DA values in the children with ST was higher than the difference in the children without ST. Supernumerary teeth in posterior localization, multiple ST and among boys were observed to increase the differences between the mean CA and DA values. The mean age difference between radiographies in the children with and without ST was similar.

CONCLUSION

Panoramic radiography was found adequate in determination of dental development with the Demirjian method. Dental development was even more advanced in the children with ST in comparison to the control group. Clinicians should keep in mind that the dental developments of children with supernumerary teeth may be advanced.

The Broad Variability in Dental Age Observed among Childhood Survivors Is Cancer Specific

PURPOSE

The study aimed to assess the differences in dental maturation between childhood cancer survivors and healthy children.

Materials and Methods

Fifty-nine cancer patients including 16 (27.1%) girls and 43 (72.8%) boys, aged between 4 and 16 years, underwent dental and radiographic examinations. The mean duration of anticancer therapy was 16.8 months (range, 1 to 47 months), and 4.6 years (range, 8 to 123 months) had passed since the termination of disease. The control group consisted of 177 panoramic radiographs of age- and sex-matched healthy individuals. Dental age (DA) was estimated with Demirjian's scale and delta age, i.e., DA-chronological age (CA), was used to compare groups.

RESULTS

The DA of cancer survivors was accelerated by almost 1 year compared to their CA (9.9±3.1 vs. 8.9±2.8, p=0.040). The greatest difference was observed among patients with brain tumor: delta (DA-CA) was 2.2±1.1 years. Among all cancer patients, only children with familial adenomatous polyposis (FAP)-associated hepatoblastoma (HP) demonstrated delayed DA, with regard to both other cancer survivors (p=0.011) and healthy patients (p=0.037). All four patients with HP suffered from FAP, and three of them had documented adenomatous polyposis coli (APC) genes mutation. The DA of cancer patients having teeth with short roots was significantly greater than that of the cancer survivors without this anomaly (12.8±3.2 vs. 9.0±2.4, p < 0.001).

CONCLUSION

DA in children may be altered by cancer disease.