Dental Age Assessment: Validity of the Nolla Method in a Group of Western Turkish Children

Abstract

The aim of this study was to evaluate the validity of the Nollamethod for dental age estimation in western Turkish children. Thisstudy consisted of 688 orthopantomograms of patients of westernTurkish children aged between 7 and 17 years. Dental maturity wasevaluated according to the stages proposed by Nolla. A pairedt-test was used for statistical analysis. The mean difference betweenthe chronological and dental ages ranged from -1 to 0.13 years formales and from -1.15 to 0.25 years for females. The differencesbetween the CA and DA were statistically significant in 10-10.9,11-11.9, and 12-12.9 year age groups for males (p<0.05). Thedifferences between the CA and DA were statistically significant in7-7.9, 8-8.9, 9-9.9, 10-10.9, and 11-11.9 year age groups for females(p<0.05). The applicability of Nolla method is suitable for westernTurkish children except ages 10, 11 and 12 in males and 7, 8, 9, 10and 11 in females. Therefore, in this study, it is suggested that thereis a need for standardization in the Turkish population in ageestimation.