Petar Milenkovic

Representing children in excavated cemeteries: the intrinsic preservation factors

Children are often under-represented in excavated populations due to the poor survival of their bones. Using a group of medieval burials from Serbia, our researchers examine the differential survival of children and of different parts of the body within the same terrain, and rightly urge us to take these factors into consideration before attempting demographic, ritual or social interpretations.

Adolescent health in medieval Serbia: signs of infectious diseases and risk of trauma.

Although pattern of health in adults has been frequently assessed in past human populations, health status of adolescents as a distinct life stage has usually been overlooked. Inconsistency in number and meaning of recognised age categories in anthropological literature, as well as chronological age ranges used to define them, further complicate the interpretation of adolescent health. In this study, we analysed signs of pathological conditions on skeletal remains of 81 adolescents from a medieval site of Stara Torina (northern Serbia). Diagnostic palaeopathological procedures comprised gross examination, digital radiography, and histological analysis. Skeletal signs of anaemia such as cribra orbitalia and other porotic phenomena as well as signs of non-specific bone infection were observed frequently, while evidence of bone trauma was recorded in a very low percentage of individuals. In addition, we recorded two conditions relatively rarely observed in palaeopathological contexts: a case of skull and vertebral asymmetry indicative of congenital muscular torticollis, and a case of a fibrous cortical defect on distal femur. Comparison with available information from other medieval adolescent samples from Serbia demonstrated that while mortality was relatively constant throughout the sample, Stara Torina showed a much higher occurrence of bone disease. Characteristics of observed skeletal conditions, supported by available historical reports, suggest that the health of medieval adolescents in the examined population was most significantly affected by infectious processes.

Modeling of liver metastatic disease with applied drug therapy.

Colorectal carcinoma is acknowledged as the second leading cause of total cancer-related death in the European Region. The majority of deaths related to colorectal carcinoma are connected with liver metastatic disease. Approximately, in 25% of all patients, liver metastatic disease is diagnosed at the same time as the primary diagnosis, while up to a quarter of others would develop liver metastases in the course of the illness. In this study, we developed reaction-diffusion model and analyzed the effect of drug therapy on liver metastatic disease for a specific patient. Tumor volumes in specific time points were obtained using CT scan images. The nonlinear function for cell proliferation rate as well as data about clinically applied drug therapy was included in the model. Fitting procedure was used for parameter estimation. Good agreement of numerical and experimental results shows the feasibility and efficacy of the proposed system.

THE INCREASED FEMORAL NECK ANTEVERSION IN MEDIEVAL CEMETERY OF PECENJEVCE: AETIOLOGY AND DIFFERENTIAL DIAGNOSIS IN ARCHAEOLOGICAL CONTEXT

The femoral neck anteversion (FNA) is defined as the angle between the longitudinal axis of the neck of a femur and the axis passing horizontally through femoral condyles. However, there is no data regarding this feature in archaeological populations. Therefore, the aim of this study was to investigate FNA in a medieval skeletal population from Serbia. According to the results the analysed angle ranged from 11 to 24 degrees in adults, apart from only one individual with significantly increased femoral neck anteversion of nearly 60 degrees. The discussion of the present paper is focused on the differential diagnosis of this condition and its aetiology, especially outlining diagnostic limitations when dealing with dry bones. Finally, the most probable aetiology of increased FNA in our case is the asymmetric form of cerebral palsy. Overall, the traces of various orthopaedic and neuromuscular disorders in past human populations could be revealed by systematic recording of the femoral neck anteversion during anthropological analyses.

The influence of anisotropic voxel caused by field of view setting on the accuracy of three-dimensional reconstruction of bone geometric models

The finite element method is playing an increasingly important role in osteoporosis screening. An accurate bone geometric model, a prerequisite for the finite element analysis, is affected by voxels. Isotropic voxel has advantages in three-dimensional reconstruction, but field of view setting usually results in anisotropic voxels. The main goal of this study was to investigate the influence of anisotropic voxel on the accuracy of three-dimensional reconstruction of bone geometric models. Sixty metatarsal bones were scanned twice with an interval of 18 months with different fields of view. We reconstructed these metatarsals and compared them. The results showed that there was no significant difference in volume, surface, length, width and height and two principal moments of inertia, indicating that anisotropic voxel caused by field of view setting has a neglectable effect on the three-dimensional reconstruction of bone geometric models, and that using finite element method based on bone geometric model reconstructed by anisotropic voxel to predict bone strength is reliable.

Extracting Cross-Sectional Clinical Images Based on Their Principal Axes of Inertia

Cross-sectional imaging is considered the gold standard in diagnosing a range of diseases. However, despite its widespread use in clinical practice and research, no widely accepted method is available to reliably match cross-sectional planes in several consecutive scans. This deficiency can impede comparison between cross-sectional images and ultimately lead to misdiagnosis. Here, we propose and demonstrate a method for finding the same imaging plane in images obtained during separate scanning sessions. Our method is based on the reconstruction of a “virtual organ” from which arbitrary cross-sectional images can be extracted, independent of the axis orientation in the original scan or cut; the key is to establish unique body coordinates of the organ from its principal axes of inertia. To verify our method a series of tests were performed, and the same cross-sectional plane was successfully extracted. This new approach offers clinicians access, after just a single scanning session, to the morphology and structure of a lesion through cross-sectional images reconstructed along arbitrary axes. It also aids comparable detection of morphological and structural changes in the same imaging plane from scans of the same patient taken at different times—thus potentially reducing the misdiagnosis rate when cross-sectional images are interpreted.