Postmortem computed tomography assessment of skeletal and dental age in Polish children, adolescents, and young adults

Abstract

This paper presents a retrospective analysis of postmortem computed tomography (PMCT) scans of secondary ossification centers in the medial clavicular epiphysis, iliac crest apophysis, proximal humeral epiphysis, distal femoral epiphysis, proximal tibial epiphysis, and distal tibial epiphysis. At the same time, we analyzed PMCT scans of the maxillary and mandibular incisors, canines, premolars, and molars. We assessed 203 corpses, whose age ranged from 2 to 30 years, including 156 males and 47 females. The purpose of our study was to compare the processes of secondary ossification center fusion and permanent tooth maturation. Our research hypothesis was that certain stages of skeletal and dental maturation occur along consistent timelines that can be related to the chronological age. Secondary ossification center fusion was evaluated based on Kreitner and also McKern and Steward’s classifications. The process of permanent tooth maturation was evaluated with Demirjian’s method. Spearman’s correlation coefficients (Rho) were positive in all analyses, which indicates that epiphyseal fusion progresses with age. The strongest relationship between the age and the stages of ossification was observed in the proximal tibial epiphysis (p < 0.001; Rho = 0.93) in females and in the medial clavicular epiphysis (p < 0.001; Rho = 0.77) in males. Studies show the importance of concomitant analysis of skeletal and dental maturation with a subsequent comparison of the results to achieve a greater precision in age estimation. A comparison of the results obtained in the study population of Polish children, adolescents, and young adults with the results of other studies in populations of similar ages showed a number of similarities in the time windows of dental and skeletal maturation. These similarities may help in age estimation.