European Journal of Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Sciences

AGE ESTIMATION IN IGBO ADULT NIGERIANS USING OCCLUSAL TOOTH WEAR

*Valentine Chidozie Amasiatu, Gabriel Sunday Oladipo, Michael Omonkhoea Oyakhire, Chinagorom P. Ibeachu

ABSTRACT

Tooth wear (TW) is said to correlate with chronological age and the durability of the tooth as well as its ability to withstand pressure and death related changes made it the choice for the study. Igbo adults (198 between the ages of 21-60 years) resident in the south-east were sampled. Those who gave their consent and reached the benchmark for selection were therefore studied. Tooth wear patterns was obtained using alginate-based impression material, which was casted using a grade IV dental stone. From the casts, occlusal tooth wear was scored 0 – 10 according to the pattern and degree of wear using the adjusted Kim’s scoring system. The teeth were numbered 14, 15, 16, 17, 24, 25, 26, 27, 34, 35, 36, 37, 44, 45, 46 and 47 following FDI nomenclature. Results were analyzed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS IBM®, version 25.0, Armonk, New York, USA) and Minitab version 18.0 (Minitab® Inc. State College, Pennsylvania). Mean values were presented as MeanSD, Mann Whitney U test was used to establish sex differences, while stepwise multivariate and univariate regression was used to estimate age from tooth wear score (TWS). Females had higher tooth wear scores compared to males. Except for tooth number 14 (t=-3.08; p= 0.00), 24 (t=-3.03; p= 0.00) & 44 (t=-2.68; p= 0.01), observed sex differences were not statistically significant. A strong positive correlation was observed between TWS and age; [ r = 0.84 (male), r = 0.85 (female)]. TW was able to predict age with 71% (male); 72% (female) accuracy. A higher percentage (63.5%) of subjects between the age of 31 – 40 had estimated age 3 years of their actual age, while those between 41 – 50 had the least prediction accuracy (29.4%).

Keywords: Occlusal, Tooth, Wear, Age, Estimation.