B. Gelbrich

Combining wrist age and third molars in forensic age estimation: how to calculate the joint age estimate and its error rate in age diagnostics*

Abstract Background: Forensic age estimation in living adolescents is based on several methods, e.g. the assessment of skeletal and dental maturation. Combination of several methods is mandatory, since age estimates from a single method are too imprecise due to biological variability. The correlation of the errors of the methods being combined must be known to calculate the precision of combined age estimates. Aim: To examine the correlation of the errors of the hand and the third molar method and to demonstrate how to calculate the combined age estimate. Subjects and methods: Clinical routine radiographs of the hand and dental panoramic images of 383 patients (aged 7.8–19.1 years, 56% female) were assessed. Results: Lack of correlation (r = –0.024, 95% CI = –0.124 to + 0.076, p = 0.64) allows calculating the combined age estimate as the weighted average of the estimates from hand bones and third molars. Combination improved the standard deviations of errors (hand = 0.97, teeth = 1.35 years) to 0.79 years. Conclusion: Uncorrelated errors of the age estimates obtained from both methods allow straightforward determination of the common estimate and its variance. This is also possible when reference data for the hand and the third molar method are established independently from each other, using different samples.

Oral health and the heart – Does HIV infection open a pathophysiological gateway?

prosthetic valve. In particular, we considered the Sorin Freedom Solo stentless bioprosthesis, as it is characterized by the complete lack of external material that makes it similar to a native valve. The rationale of our investigation was to assess a computational tool able to guide the surgeon during the operation, predicting the optimal prosthesis size to be implanted. Our study gives indeed a further confirmation that an oversized prosthesis, despite being perfectly competent, could be exposed to a non-physiological closure and stress, and that the optimal size could be predicted using a pre-operative patientspecific FEA. In conclusionwe think that FEA has great potentiality to be applied in clinical setting in order to optimize postoperative results following aortic valve surgery. The authors of this manuscript have certified that they comply with the Principles of Ethical Publishing in the International Journal of Cardiology (Shewan and Coats 2010;144:1–2). References