Estimativa da idade em individuos vivos não-adultos : aplicação do método de demirjian a uma população portuguesa

• Author(s): Júlio, Paula Sofia da Costa
• Date: 2011
• Persistent ID: http://hdl.handle.net/10216/21934
• Origin: Repositório Aberto da Universidade do Porto
• Subject(s): Estatística; Statistics; Porto
• Document Type: Master thesis
• Language: Portuguese

Description

The European continent has a long Humanitarian tradition of shelter and asylum to foreigners and refugee. However, nowadays the European Union countries are dealing with the illegal immigration phenomenon. Besides, Schengen space free circulation is used as an advantage by criminal organizations that control nets of clandestine immigration, exploring human beings, being the most vulnerable young children. So, in order to fight against these activities, States Members police forces and judicial authorities are working together. In this context, often these children or young people don t have documents, or having them the suspicion of irregularities is arise, and so, is necessary to evaluate these individuals and determine their age, so that the authorities can reply according with the law of their country and in agreement with the international protection. Some years ago, papers of organizations as ACNUR release some alerts, concerning the issue of age determination, underlining that age establishment is not exact, but has indeed a considerable margin of error that must be mentioned. Among the forensic scientific community, the problem of reliability of the applied methods in age diagnostic of the living individual is a reality in course. Some recent organizations, as IOFOS and AGFAD, are leading the elaboration and update of guidelines or protocols for the forensic experts. The problem in estimating chronological age, using the different ages as bone age, sexual age and dental age, is obvious. Chronological age follows a continuous and inexorable path, while biological age can present a more irregular evolution, with accelerations and delays, and also depending on genetic and ambient factors. Among the development ages, the dental age in the immature individuals is considered the most exact and precise. In fact, the criteria of mineralized stages used to determine dental age in an attempt to reach the degree of individual maturity, is one of the best biological methods in screening the physiological development. The estimation of the chronological age must however Summary 124 result of some combine biological ages with the purpose of increase the precision of the diagnostic age. Despite all natural difficulties in estimating chronological age from biological age, in literature we can find proposals of elaborated techniques in the mathematical point of view with lesser margin of error when applied to the same population of the reference sample. One of the most well-known methods, in what validity and reliability are concerned, is the method of Demirjian et al., 1973; 1976, currently considered the method of international reference for the determination of the age in young undocumented minors. This method was applied to a sample of 512 Portuguese individuals, 261 girls and 251 boys, with ages between 6 and 16 and whose panoramic radiographs had been taken in the FMDUP. The outcome was an overestimation of 0,41 for girls and 1,57 for boys. In this study we have concluded that the method of Demirjian even if has applicability to our trial, needs correction for the dental maturity standards of young Portuguese people in this age interval.