Validity of Willems age estimation method in children’s & adolescents’ of Dakshina Kannada Region, India

Willems gender-specific and non-specific maturity scores derive the age of the individual with acceptable error margins in the Belgian Population. This needs to be validated in various subpopulations to enable its use in age estimation. Our aim was to test the validity of both Willems’s I & II maturity scores to estimate dental age in children and adolescents (aged 5–20 yrs) in Dakshina Kannada population in India. Seven teeth of mandibular left quadrant from 800 Orthopantomograms (Male:Female::372:428) of individuals aged 5–20 years were staged using Demirjian’s method and substituted by the Willems maturity scores to derive the age. The chronological and the predicted age of the individuals were correlated to derive the mean absolute error of age estimation in male, female and total. The mean absolute error of estimation of age in males, females, and total of Willems I and II techniques were 1.11, 1.04, 1.07, 1.15, 1.04 and 1.09 years respectively. The gender nonspecific scores predominantly underestimated the age. The Willems I technique showed an underestimation of age in females and over-estimation of age in males (p < 0.001). The present study validates Willems method of age estimation in Dakshina Kannada population, showing a low error rate of ∼1 year.