Abstract
Background/Objectives: The growth status of children and adolescents with discrepancies of maxilla/mandible during the growing period should be closely monitored to determine the appropriate time to begin growth modification in orthodontic treatment. Skeletal growth assessment using the cervical vertebral maturation (CVM) method is widely used and accepted; however, monitoring requires additional doses of radiation. Thus, this study aimed to evaluate tooth development from routine panoramic radiographs to represent the growth status rather than using the CVM method. Methods: Three hundred and sixty pairs of lateral cephalometric and panoramic radiographs (180 males and 180 females) aged 7–15 years were included. Teeth 31–37 of each panoramic radiograph were identified as A to H according to the Demirjian method, and the stages of skeletal growth were indicated from lateral cephalometric radiographs using the CVM method. The relationship between tooth development and CVM was analyzed using Spearman’s rank correlation coefficients. Results: The correlation coefficients ranged from 0.487 to 0.768 for male subjects and from 0.503 to 0.759 for female subjects. Tooth 33 was found to have the highest correlation in males (r = 0.768) and tooth 37 was revealed to have the highest correlation in females (r = 0.759) (p < 0.01). Conclusions: Teeth 33–37 showed correlation coefficients close to 0.7 or above, which indicated a moderate-to-high correlation between tooth development and CVM. Thus, the pattern of tooth development from teeth 33–37 may serve as a supplementary indicator of skeletal maturation timing which was similar in both males and females, and may serve as a supplementary indicator of skeletal maturation timing.