Recognition of leukemia in skeletal remains: report and comparison of two cases.

Recognition of leukemia in skeletal remains: report and comparison of two cases.

Rothschild B M; Hershkovitz I; Dutour O; Latimer B; Rothschild C; Jellema L M

American journal of physical anthropology

1997

1997-04

Recognition of disease in the archeologic record is facilitated by characterization of the skeletal impact of documented (in life) disease. The present study describes the osteological manifestations of leukemia as identified in the skeletons of two individuals diagnosed during life: a 3-year-old black girl with acute lymphocytic leukemia and a 60-year-old white male with acute myelogenous leukemia in the Hamann-Todd collection. Contrasting with the lack of specificity of radiologic findings, macroscopic skeletal changes appear sufficiently specific to allow distinguishing leukemia from other forms of cancer. While leukemia appears confidently diagnosable, distinguishing among the varieties (e.g., myelogenous and lymphocytic) does not appear possible at this time. Skeletal findings in leukemia are presented in tabular form to facilitate their application to future diagnosis of the disease in the archaeological record.

Acute/*pathology; Archaeology; Bone and Bones/diagnostic imaging/*pathology; Child; Female; Humans; Leukemia; Male; Middle Aged; Museums; Myeloid; Precursor Cell Lymphoblastic Leukemia-Lymphoma/*pathology; Preschool; Radiography; Skull/diagnostic imaging/pathology; Spine/diagnostic imaging/pathology

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481–496

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