Dental Age Estimation in Adults: A Forensic Challenge
摘要
In Forensic Anthropology, during the biological profile establishment phase, it is of paramount importance to employ the best efforts and evidence to estimate the age of the deceased or a living individual, for criminal and/or civil reasons [26]. Dental age (DA) is basically the biological age of an individual observed through dental parameter observations, such as mineralization, development and eruption, for example, and it is a different concept from the chronological age (CA), which represents the date of birth of the same individual [24]. In this sense, dental age estimation is trivial in forensic situations of living individuals (senile people, asylum seekers, adoption purposes, etc.), dead persons (anthropological examination) and even for therapeutic purposes (puberty and growth for orthodontics), or archaeology (Schmelling et al. 2007).