Alibrio Maya N, Tallman Sean D
Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology, Boston University Chobanian and Avedisian School of Medicine, Boston, MA 02118, USA.
Department of Anthropology, Boston University, Boston, MA 02215, USA.
Diagnostics (Basel). 2024 Jul 12;14(14):1500. doi: 10.3390/diagnostics14141500.
It is currently unknown whether cancer and cancer treatment affect age-related skeletal changes used in the biological profile for skeletonized remains. This research examines the effects of cancer on skeletal age estimation using computed tomography (CT) scans of the pubic symphyses for 307 individuals from the New Mexico Descendent Image Database. The Suchey-Brooks method was applied to 125 individuals without documented cancer and 182 individuals with documented cancer. Individuals were correctly aged if their chronological age fell within the original study's 95% prediction range. Though not statistically significant, the results show that females with cancer were aged correctly 74.7% of the time, and females without cancer were aged correctly 85.1% of the time; males with cancer were aged correctly 46.0% of the time, and males without cancer were aged correctly 55.7% of the time. Additionally, a total of 30 individuals were reanalyzed to examine intraobserver error, and a Cohen's kappa value of = 0.600 indicated a moderate level of agreement. While no statistical differences were found between cancer and control groups, CT scans may lack the resolution needed to visualize the nuanced effects of bone mineral density loss, if present, and the overall quality of bone, despite their proven utility in dry-bone skeletal analyses.
目前尚不清楚癌症及癌症治疗是否会影响用于骨骼残骸生物特征分析的与年龄相关的骨骼变化。本研究利用新墨西哥后裔图像数据库中307名个体耻骨联合的计算机断层扫描（CT）图像，研究癌症对骨骼年龄估计的影响。将苏奇-布鲁克斯方法应用于125名无癌症记录的个体和182名有癌症记录的个体。如果个体的实际年龄落在原研究的95%预测范围内，则其年龄判定正确。结果显示，虽然无统计学意义，但患癌女性年龄判定正确的比例为74.7%，未患癌女性为85.1%；患癌男性年龄判定正确的比例为46.0%，未患癌男性为55.7%。此外，共对30名个体进行重新分析以检验观察者内部误差，科恩kappa值为0.600，表明一致性程度中等。虽然癌症组和对照组之间未发现统计学差异，但CT扫描可能缺乏可视化骨矿物质密度损失（若存在）和骨骼整体质量细微影响所需的分辨率，尽管其在干骨骨骼分析中的效用已得到证实。
