June 2011

Objective To investigate the accuracy and precision of Haavikko’s method in estimating dental age (DA) in healthy Chinese children, and evaluate the agreement between DA and dental age in the left mandibular quadrant (DALM) , in order to simplify Haavikko’s method by using only the developing teeth in the left half of the mandible. Method Six hundred and thirteen panoramic photographs of healthy Chinese children were reviewed retrospectively. DA and DALM were calculated using Haavikko’s method, but DALM included only the developing teeth in the left mandible. A paired t-test was used to compare the difference between chronological age (CA) and DA, DA and DALM. Correlation coefficients were calculated. Intra-examiner and inter-examiner variation were also evaluated using Cohen’s Kappa value. Results Intra-examiner and inter-examiner Kappa values were 0.90 and 0.84 respectively, indicating a high reliability of Haavikko’s method in this study group. The mean difference between DA and CA of the samples was 0.14 years. The correlation coefficient between the two was 0.93. For DA and DALM, the mean difference was 0.05 years, and the correlation coefficient was 0.99. Conclusions Haavikko’s method has a high degree of accuracy and precision when applied in this Chinese population. DALM may be used instead of DA to estimate dental ages. Key words: dental age, Haavikko method, Chinese population