DeWitte Sharon N
Department of Anthropology, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC 29208, United States.
Int J Paleopathol. 2014 Dec;7:38-44. doi: 10.1016/j.ijpp.2014.06.001. Epub 2014 Jul 8.
Periosteal new bone formation is frequently used in paleopathological and paleoepidemiological studies to diagnose particular diseases or to assess non-specific stress in past populations. Many researchers distinguish between active (woven or unremodeled) and healed (sclerotic or remodeled) periosteal lesions during data collection, but few published studies maintain a distinction between these two activity categories in analysis or interpretation. Though it has been suggested that healed periosteal lesions might indicate relatively good health and enhanced survivorship, no study has explicitly examined this possible relationship in a large skeletal sample that includes both children and adults. This study examines the relationship between periosteal lesion activity (active vs. healed) and survival using a sample of 538 individuals from several medieval London cemeteries, which in combination span the period 1120-1538. The results of Kaplan-Meier survival analysis indicate that healed periosteal lesions are associated with survival advantages compared to both those with active lesions and those without any lesions at all. These results suggest that active periosteal lesions might most closely reflect high frailty and bioarchaeological studies should focus on the distinction between the presence or absence of healing rather than merely on the presence of periosteal lesions irrespective of their activity.
骨膜新生骨形成常用于古病理学和古流行病学研究，以诊断特定疾病或评估过去人群中的非特异性应激。许多研究人员在数据收集过程中区分活跃（编织状或未重塑）和愈合（硬化或重塑）的骨膜病变，但很少有已发表的研究在分析或解释中保持这两种活动类别之间的区分。尽管有人认为愈合的骨膜病变可能表明相对良好的健康状况和更高的生存率，但尚无研究在包括儿童和成人的大型骨骼样本中明确检验这种可能的关系。本研究使用来自几个中世纪伦敦墓地的538名个体的样本，研究骨膜病变活动（活跃与愈合）与生存之间的关系，这些墓地合起来跨越了1120 - 1538年的时间段。Kaplan - Meier生存分析结果表明，与有活跃病变的个体和完全没有任何病变的个体相比，愈合的骨膜病变与生存优势相关。这些结果表明，活跃的骨膜病变可能最能密切反映高脆弱性，生物考古学研究应关注愈合与否的区别，而不仅仅是骨膜病变的存在与否，而不论其活动情况如何。
