Olze et al. stages of radiographic visibility of root pulp and cameriere's third molar maturity index to estimate legal adult age in Hyderabad population.

Abstract

Context: Predicting one's attainment of age of majority is a controversial issue and considered as important aspect in medicolegal cases. In India, individuals older than 18 years of age have full capacity regarding civil conduct and are tried as adults for criminal charges.

Aims and objective: To compare the accuracy of Olze et al., stages of radiographic visibility of root pulp, and Cameriere's third molar maturity index (I _3M < 0.08) to estimate the age of majority.

Materials and methods: A total of 615 digital orthopantomographs of children aged between 15 and 22 years. The lower left third molars were evaluated using ImageJ computer software. The effectiveness of both methods was evaluated using sensitivity, specificity, positive likelihood ratios (LR+), and LR negative (LR-).

Results: For I _3M < 0.08, the sensitivity, specificity, LR+, LR- were 0.76, 0.72, 2.79, 0.32 and 0.67, 0.76, 2.83, 0.43 in males and females respectively. For Stage 0, the sensitivity, specificity, LR+, LR- were 0.68, 0.86, 5.18, 0.36 and 0.72, 0.91, 8.63, 0.31, respectively.

Conclusion: Stage 0 of Olze's radiographic root pulp visibility showed to be more accurate than cutoff value of I _3M< 0.08 in discriminating adults and minors of Hyderabad sample when a test of high sensitivity and specificity is required.