Title

Age-related root dentin translucency in mandibular second premolars: A cross-sectional study

Authors

Manish Bhagwan Sarode¹,*, Pratibha Sultane², Jagdishchandra Vathar², Sneha Raul³, Priyanka Jaynarayan Mantri⁴, Sandip D. Patil⁵ & Shital Rameshrao Kharat¹

Affiliation

¹Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Pathology, Government Dental College and Hospital, Jalgaon, Maharashtra, India; ²Department of Public Health Dentistry, Government Dental College and Hospital, Jalgaon, Maharashtra, India; ³Department of Prosthodontics, Government Dental College and Hospital, Jalgaon, Maharashtra, India; ⁴Department of Orthodontics and Dentofacial Orthopedics, Government Dental College and Hospital, Jalgaon, Maharashtra, India; ⁵Department of Conservative Dentistry and Endodontics, Government Dental College and Hospital, Jalgaon, Maharashtra, India; *Corresponding author

Email

Manish Bhagwan Sarode - E-mail: drmanishsarode@gmail.com
Pratibha Sultane - E-mail: 090pratibha@gmail.com
Jagdishchandra Vathar - E-mail: drjagdish.v@rediffmail.com
Sneha Raul - E-mail: sneharaul3505@gmail.com
Priyanka Jaynarayan Mantri - E-mail: Priyanka.mantri9@gmail.com
Sandip D Patil - E-mail: dr.sandip85@gmail.com
Shital Rameshrao Kharat - E-mail: shitalkharat42@gmail.com

Article Type

Research Article

Date

Received August 1, 2026; Revised August 31, 2026; Accepted August 31, 2026, Published August 31, 2026

Abstract

Age estimation is an important part of forensic identification in adults, where dental developmental markers are no longer useful. Hence, this cross-sectional study assessed root dentin translucency in 100 extracted mandibular second premolars from a Pune population to determine its usefulness as an age marker across different age groups. Translucency length increased progressively with age, from a mean of 0.3 ± 0.5 mm in the 11–20 year group to 8.8 ± 1.6 mm in the 61–70 year group and showed a strong positive correlation with chronological age (r = 0.890, p = 0.001). The regression equation Age = 22.29 + 4.670 translucency length explained 79.21% of the age variation, while individuals above 30 years showed a much more consistent translucency pattern than younger adults (p < 0.001). Thus, we show root dentin translucency as a practical and reliable digital age estimator in adults, especially after the third decade of life.

Keywords

Forensic odontology, age estimation, root dentin translucency, mandibular second premolar, digital analysis

Citation

Sarode et al. Bioinformation 22(8): 5352-5355 (2026)

Edited by

Vini Mehta

ISSN

0973-2063

Publisher

Biomedical Informatics

License

This is an Open Access article which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. This is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License.