Age Assessment through Third Molar Teeth Developmental Stage in Children
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The research is designed appropriate. The parer is well structured and all parts are well described.
Author Response
thank you for the review.
Reviewer 2 Report
The paper is very poorly written. Firstly, there is just one original figure, and the caption of it is very unprofessional. It should be Figure 2, not Graph 1. The text on the figure is too small, making it hard to be clearly seen. Table caption should be put above the table, not below the table. These are all fundamental writing principles, however, the authors didn’t seem to follow the principles, or they just didn’t pay much attention to them.
Author Response
graph 1 changed to figure 2.
thank you for the review.
Reviewer 3 Report
This study is actually an extrapolation of Demirjian's method and does not add anything new to what is already known. Although it is not mentioned in the title, the authors try to make a correlation with the importance of this study in legal medicine and forensics, without developing the idea or showing to what extent the method is used for this purpose (legal medicine, forensics, etc.) That's why, personally, I don't see a new practical applicability or a scientific sound of this study, in this form.
Author Response
thank you for the review.
the sake of the paper was to try and correlate different age groups (12,14,16) to the Demirjian staging, as the age for legal, social benefits, employment and marriage issues varies in different countries (between the ages of 12,14 and 16).
Reviewer 4 Report
1. Valuable study for forensic dentistry and other applications.
2. Data can be further substantiated if 'intra' and 'inter' observer variability has been addressed. Please include information on who and how many study personnel reviewed the panoramic radiographs and if this variability has been addressed during the study.
3. CBCTs can be used for similar future studies to improve accuracy of imaging
Author Response
thank you for the review.
unfortunately, one reviewer (senior pediatric dentistry resident) has performed all the data collection. this information has been added to the manuscript. CBCT for children, just for the sake of the research is not appropriate.
Reviewer 5 Report
Dear Authors,
The manuscript appears to be interesting, however I do have some suggestions
Comments for author File: 
Comments.pdf
Author Response
the specific comments have been addressed and changed.
thank you for the detailed review.
abstract - corrected,
M&M - IRB inserted. there was no sample size calculation, interpratation detailed more (all done by the same senior pediatric dentistry resident).
results - table for each age group, maxilla and mandible (with 7 categories on Y axis, and 12 categories on X axis does not seem to add information to the reader. I will be happy to send all the tables as needed. ages 12 and 14 are not overlapping, we wanted to check the Demirjian stage correlates the best to the specific age of 12,14 or 16 separately, as these different age groups have different criminal responsibilities in difference countries around the world. regression equation usually should not be written, but the equation is well documented table 2.
Round 2
Reviewer 2 Report
I have no further comments
Author Response
Thank you for your review
Reviewer 3 Report
Dear authors,
the paper is not within the scope and title of this special issue
It was not improved according to my suggestions.
In this form , the scientific sound and clinical application is low. There is not enough relevance of the results.
The discussions and comparison with other results from the literature and the references are insufficient.
Author Response
Thank you for your review.
The article is relevant to the special issue (as the topics for the special issue are wide).
As written before - there are interesting specific results:
patients in developmental stage > 5 were over 12 years old in the maxilla and 97% in the mandible. Patients in developmental stage > 6 were over 14 years old in 100% of cases in both the maxilla and mandible. Patients in developmental stage > 7 were over 16 years old in 100% of cases in both the maxilla and mandible.
