Indonesia is an archipelagic country bordered by tectonically active zones with intense seismicity and volcanism. This condition is often associated with a high‐risk situation of disasters in Indonesia. Forensic identification is a necessary procedure to reveal an individual’s identity. An identity, including sex and age, is needed to build a conclusion of human identification. Dental age estimation is a subfield of forensic odontology which focuses on establishing an individual’s age. Tooth development, biochemical, and postformation changes are the parameters for estimating dental age. This review discusses the applicable dental age estimation method for children and adolescents in Indonesia. Several articles that have previously studied dental age estimation in Indonesia were reviewed for this manuscript. On reviewing these articles, it was found that the Demirjian method, the Willems method, and the Al Qahtani method are useful in this population with higher accuracy than other methods.

Kurniawan A, et al. Imaging Sci Dent. 2025 Mar;55:e5. https://doi.org/10.5624/isd.20240134

Background: The assimilation between three-dimensional (3D) imaging techniques and dental forensic science can provide rich and stable information for human identification. This study aimed to determine the effective number and surfaces of teeth for dental identification through the 3D imaging approach. Material and methods: In the present study, maxillary dental casts were fabricated from subjects who met the inclusion criteria and scanned using a 3D scanner Vivid 910. Rapidform XOS/SCAN software was used to create and trim the 3D point cloud data. Subsequently, two types of 3D surface data of dental casts were registered and the root mean square errors (RMSEs) between subjects were calculated using iterative closest point (ICP) algorithm in MATLAB. Two sets of experiments with 120 combinations of the superimposed 3D dataset were designed, termed as experiments 1 and 2. Results: In experiment 1, the difference between subjects was clearly distinguished with a minimum of six teeth of the dental arch. The results of experiment 2 suggest that the labial surfaces of the anterior teeth are sufficient to be used for dental identification. Conclusion: Through these experiments for all possible pairs of subjects, a clear difference was observed in the RMSE between the genuine and imposter pairs. These results indicate the potential of using the 3D imaging technique to achieve highly accurate human identification. It is suggested that a future study with a larger sample number will evaluate the robustness and accuracy of this method.

Objectives. Dental age estimation has been employed in a range of legal operations as well as catastrophe victim identification. Dental age estimation is regarded as an appropriate method for estimating a person’s age because there is a high association between age and teeth. This study aims to assess the suitability of the Al Qahtani and Willems dental age estimation approaches for the Indonesian children and adolescent population. Methods. A total of 150 panoramic radiographs of patients (75 boys and 75 girls, 6‐17 years old) were obtained from the Department of Radiology, Airlangga University, Indonesia. One researcher analyzed estimated dental age (EDA) twice in a one‐week time‐lapse using the Willems and Al Qahtani methods. The statistical analysis of the present study was carried out using IBM® SPSS® Statistics version 25.0 (IBM, Armonk, NY, USA). Results. The mean of this study’s chronological age (CA) was 11.60 ± 3.41. Using the Willems method, the mean difference between CA and EDA for boys and girls was ‐0.41 ± 0.90. The mean difference between CA and EDA for boys and girls is 0.33 ± 0.61 using the Al Qahtani method. Conclusions. According to the findings of this investigation, the dental age estimation method proposed by Al Qahtani and Willems can be applied to the population in Surabaya. However, a comprehensive study is required when using this method because the data revealed significant statistical disparities between the two methods.

Background: The applicability of dental age estimation has been expanded to meet a variety of medico-legal needs, law enforcement, and disaster victim identification. The objective of this study is to examine the applicability of the Willems method for Indonesian children. Material and method: A total of 110 panoramic radiographs of the patients (6–14 years old) who met the inclusion criteria were obtained from the Department of Forensic Odontology and Department of Radiology, Universitas Airlangga, Indonesia. Estimated dental age (EDA) was assessed using the Willems method by two blinded examiners. The statistical analysis was carried out using IBM® SPSS® Statistics version 23.0 (IBM, Armonk, NY, USA). Results and discussion: The mean of the chronological age (CA) in this study is 11.30 ± 1.43 years (boys) and 11.65 ± 1.55 years (girls). The overall mean difference between CA and EDA for boys and girls is − 0.08 ± 0.76 and − 0.31 ± 0.97, respectively. This study showed that the mean age difference in girls was more significant than in boys. The growth spurt timing between boys and girls might cause a difference in dental maturation, whereas the onset of the pubertal growth spurt in girls is about 2 years earlier than in boys. In general, girls start and finish their dental development earlier than boys end. Conclusion: The present study suggests that the dental age estimation methods proposed by Willems can be considered as an applicable method for the children population in Surabaya, both boys and girls. However, a detailed study may be required while applying this approach to the 11–14-year-old girl population in Surabaya, as a substantial underestimation was observed in this community.