• Valeria Santoro, Antonio De Donno, Maricla Marrone, Carlo Pietro Campobasso, and Francesco Introna.
• Section of Legal Medicine, University of Bari, P.zza G. Cesare 11, 70124 Bari, Italy. vasantoro@virgilio.it
• Forensic Sci. Int. 2009 Dec 15; 193 (1-3): 129.e1-4.

AbstractIn recent years, skeletal age determination has become increasingly important in criminal investigations for determining the age of living individuals. To increase diagnostic accuracy, a physical examination, an X-ray examination of the left hand, as well as a dental examination including the determination of the dental status and an X-ray of the dentition should always be performed. In this work, the authors analyze a sample of 52 illegal immigrants who came under their observation in the period from May 1989 to September 2007. A statistical analysis of the results of dental and skeletal age estimations was performed as well as an analysis between the reported and assessed ages. The results showed a significant difference between reported age and assessed biological age (p<0.001); however, no statistical difference was shown between skeletal and assessed dental age (p=0.431).

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