Dental age assessment of Maltese children and adolescents. Development of a reference dataset and comparison with a United Kingdom Caucasian reference dataset

• A reference data set for dental age of the Maltese population created.
• No difference in dental age between the UK and Maltese populations.
• The simple unweighted average allows accurate computation of dental age.

The purpose of this study was to develop and validate a Reference Data Set for Dental Age Assessment of the Maltese population and compare the mean Age of Attainment to a UK Caucasian Reference Data Set.The Maltese Reference Data Set was developed from 1593 Dental Panoramic Tomograms of patients aged between 4 and 26 years, taken from the radiographic archives of the Dental Department, Mater Dei Hospital, Malta. Tooth Development Stages were recorded for all 16 maxillary and mandibular permanent teeth on the left side and both permanent third molars on the right, according to Demirjian's staging method. Summary and percentile data were calculated for each Tooth Development Stage, including the mean Age of Attainment. These means were used to estimate the Dental Age of each subject in the study sample using the simple unweighted average method. The estimated Dental Age was compared to the gold standard of the Chronological Age. Comparison of the Maltese and UK Caucasian Reference Data Set was by a series of t-tests, carried out for each paired Tooth Development Stage by gender.The mean Age of Attainment was slightly higher for the Maltese than the UK Caucasians in both males and females. However there was no statistically significant difference between the Chronological Age and Dental Age for either sex.