Age estimation in children is an important question in forensic medicine as well as clinical dentistry.
Developing teeth are thought to be useful means to assess maturation and hence biological age estimation in
children. Several methods have been adopted to examine developing teeth especially those dedicated to measure
stages of teeth formation rather than its eruption. The purpose of the present work was to evaluate the suitability of
using Willems and Cameriere methods for dental age estimation among children from the Middle East region.
METHODS: Retrospective study of orthopantomographs of 345 healthy children representing a sample from Arab
countries of the Middle East that were collected during the period from 2008-2010 were examined. Willems and
Cameriere methods were implemented for dental age estimation from left mandibular teeth.
RESULTS: Preliminary results for boys from Egypt and Qatar state (60 and 50 respectively) using Willems method
indicated significant correlation with chronological age with average overestimation of age by 0.44+/-0.05 years for
Egyptian children and for Qatari boys by 0.64+/-0.08.
CONCLUSIONS: Initial conclusion showed that Willems method can be a suitable method for both forensic and
dental application for Egyptian and Qatari boys.