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Objective: The purpose of this study is to examine the time-related changes of alveolar bone in 2D images quantitatively and to estimate age groups based on the change index., Materials and Methods: The 238 panoramic X-ray images and 140 CT panoramic reconstructed images of the permanent dentition period were used to examine age-related changes. Comparisons between the younger age group and each of the other age groups were calculated using the landmark method of Procrustes analysis. As aging changes were observed in each age group, age estimation was performed using antemortem panoramic X-ray images and postmortem CT images so that they could be used in practice. The CT images used in the age estimation were performed using forty-two postmortem CT panoramic reconstructed images of known age submitted to the judicial autopsy., Results: Both panoramic and CT images showed changes in the alveolar bone over time. Age estimation using postmortem CT images provided a certain assessment., Conclusion: In this study, clinically observed changes in alveolar bone over time were quantified on the images. Furthermore, the possibility of age estimation by alveolar bone was also suggested. The use of an updatable clinical database that can be stored in coordinate values offers the potential for age estimation in line with the times., Competing Interests: Declaration of Competing Interest There are no conflicts of interest to declare., (Copyright © 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)

The existing methods for determining adult age from human skeletons are mostly qualitative. However, a shift in quantifying age-related skeletal morphology on a quantitative scale is emerging. This study describes an intuitive variable extraction technique and quantifies skeletal morphology in continuous data to understand their aging pattern. A total of 200 postmortem CT images from the deceased aged 25-99 years (130 males, 70 females) who underwent forensic death investigations were used in the study. The 3D volume of the fourth lumbar vertebral body was segmented, smoothed, and post-processed using the open-source software ITK-SNAP and MeshLab, respectively. To measure the extent of 3D shape deformity due to aging, the Hausdorff distance (HD) analysis was performed. In our context, the maximum Hausdorff distance (maxHD) was chosen as a metric, which was subsequently studied for its correlation with age at death. A strong statistically significant positive correlation (P < 0.001) between maxHD and age at death was observed in both sexes (Spearman's rho = 0.742, male; Spearman's rho = 0.729, female). In simple linear regression analyses, the regression equations obtained yielded the standard error of estimates of 12.5 years and 13.1 years for males and females, respectively. Our study demonstrated that age-related vertebral morphology could be described using the HD method. Moreover, it encourages further studies with larger sample sizes and on other population backgrounds to validate the methodology., (© 2023. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature.)