Age estimation plays a very important role in forensic medicine.
Chinese law defines two legally relevant age limits: 14 and
16 years. According to the law, citizens of different ages assume
different legal responsibilities. More precisely, person below
14 years old would not have to take any criminal liability; person
aged from 14 to 16 only takes limited criminal liability; when the
adolescent is over 16 years old, he or she must take the same
criminal liabilities as an adult does. Besides, to determine the age,
when unknown or uncertain, of people under criminal prosecution
or to assess the age of immigrants, without documents, for the
purposes of legalizing their position is also important. Therefore, it
has always been a challenging issue for a Chinese forensic doctor to
assess the biological age of a subject nearly legal age.