Root dentin translucency and age at death estimation in adults using single rooted teeth: Update of the Forensic International Dental Database

Since the publication of Lamendin's age estimation technique, the root dentin translucency has received increasing attention as an important indicator of age. Recently, Parra and colleagues presented the Forensic International Dental Database (FIDB), a proposal to estimate age at death in adults based on Bayes theorem by applying the criteria of Lamendin's technique. The present study aims to update the procedure and to evaluate a new version of the method (named FIDBv2) using two control samples from Colombia and Greece. The performance of this new version was acceptable and suggests that the method is suitable for age at death estimation in adult individuals from different forensic contexts. The best approximations to chronological age were obtained for individuals between 30 and 60 years old, with errors less than 10 years. The age estimations calculated on control samples suggest the adequate performance of FIDBv2 on individuals from varied populations. It can be stated that the FIDBv2 con-stitutes a solid alternative to be used in contexts where no additional data are available. Here we re-inforce the initial idea that this model for estimating age at death in adults may be generalizable to any forensic context in the world.(c) 2023 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Automated summary

Since the publication of Lamendin's age estimation technique, the use of root dentin translucency as an indicator of age has garnered attention. Parra and colleagues proposed the Forensic International Dental Database (FIDB), a method based on Bayes theorem and Lamendin's technique, to estimate age at death in adults. This study aims to update and evaluate a new version of the method (FIDBv2) using samples from Colombia and Greece, showing its acceptable performance and suitability for age estimation in various forensic contexts. The FIDBv2 is considered a reliable alternative in situations where additional data is unavailable, and its applicability is not limited to specific populations.