Lynnerup Niels, Frohlich Bruno, Thomsen Jørgen L
Laboratory of Biological Anthropology, Department of Forensic Pathology, University of Copenhagen, The Panum Institute, Blegdamsvej 3, DK-2200 Copenhagen N, Denmark.
Forensic Sci Int. 2006 May 15;159 Suppl 1:S100-3. doi: 10.1016/j.forsciint.2006.02.023. Epub 2006 Mar 9.
The microscopic method of age at death determination was introduced by Kerley in 1965 [E.R. Kerley, The microscopic determination of age in human bone, Am. J. Phys. Anthropol, 23 (1965) 149-163.]. However, even though the method has been revised several times, there remain some fundamental issues concerning the reliability of the methods. This is because several basic histological features seen in a cross section of a bone have to be quantified according to the method, but the definition, and hence quantification, of these features leaves room for subjectivity. In a previous study we found that some of these features (osteon fragments and Haversian canals) could not be identified reliably. Only secondary osteons could be identified with a low inter and intra observer error. Furthermore, since the histological features are quantified in only parts of an entire bone cross section, the selection of these parts or areas is a potential source of bias. Finally, unless an unbiased method is used for addressing features on the borders of the selected areas, this will also introduce error. These issues have not been addressed specifically in previous studies. In this study, we used the methods of stereology to choose the regions of interest, as well as for dealing with border phenomena, and we only counted secondary osteons. Our results show a statistically significant increase in the median number of osteons per area unit with increasing age at death. However, this was after exclusion of one outlier. This result is probably due to the limited sample size (N = 24). As such, this study is preliminary, but does warrant applying the described techniques to a larger sample.
1965年，克尔利提出了通过微观方法确定死亡年龄[E.R. 克尔利，《人类骨骼年龄的微观测定》，《美国体质人类学杂志》，23 (1965) 149 - 163]。然而，尽管该方法已多次修订，但在方法的可靠性方面仍存在一些基本问题。这是因为根据该方法，必须对在骨横切面中看到的几个基本组织学特征进行量化，但这些特征的定义以及因此的量化存在主观因素。在之前的一项研究中，我们发现其中一些特征（骨单位碎片和哈弗斯管）无法可靠识别。只有次级骨单位能够以较低的观察者间和观察者内误差被识别。此外，由于仅在整个骨横切面的部分区域对组织学特征进行量化，这些部分或区域的选择是偏差的一个潜在来源。最后，除非使用无偏方法来处理所选区域边界上的特征，否则这也会引入误差。这些问题在之前的研究中尚未得到具体解决。在本研究中，我们使用体视学方法来选择感兴趣的区域，以及处理边界现象，并且我们只计算次级骨单位。我们的结果显示，随着死亡年龄的增加，每单位面积骨单位的中位数在统计学上有显著增加。然而，这是在排除一个异常值之后。这个结果可能是由于样本量有限（N = 24）。因此，本研究是初步的，但确实值得将所描述的技术应用于更大的样本。
