A comparative study of efficacy of single rooted and double rooted teeth in age estimation using dentin translucency.

BACKGROUND: Among various methods of age estimation using dental tissues, measurement of root dentin translucency (RDT) is said to be the most accurate. Numerous studies have estimated age by measuring RDT in single and double rooted teeth and have shown conflicting results. Only few studies have compared efficacy of using single and double rooted teeth for RDT measurement in age estimation. AIM: To analyze the efficacy of single rooted teeth (SRT) and double rooted teeth (DRT) for measurement of sclerotic dentin (SD) and age estimation. METHOD: Study was conducted on 120 freshly extracted SR and DR teeth with 60 teeth in each group. Ground sections of 150 µ thickness were observed under stereomicroscope and photographed. The sclerotic dentin length was measured on the images captured using image analysis software. RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: The present study did not reveal significant difference (p = 0.012) between SRT and DRT when RDT was used for age estimation. However DRT provided more accurate age estimation than SRT with less mean age difference.