Secondary osteon population densities: An algorithm for estimating the missing osteons

Abstract

A given number of secondary osteons—an osteon population—reflects two kinds of direct influences: the length of time during which new osteons were being created and the mean annual number of such creations. While in principle dividing an observed osteon population by the age of the background bone would provide the mean annual creations, as the number of secondary osteons increases in a given diaphyseal cross section, new ones can begin to remove all microscopic evidence of older ones. As a result increasing numbers of observed osteons tend to become progressively smaller fractions of all osteons created in that domain. This algorithm suggests a way to estimate the total osteon creations from an observed osteon population. It begins by normalizing an observed osteon population to a decimal fraction of its corresponding maximum possible value. Entering that result in a simple equation then provides an estimate of the corresponding total osteon creations. Dividing the total osteon creations in a bone domain by the latter's mean age then provides the number of new osteons being created annually, averaged over the lifetime of the bone in which the creations occurred. This annual creation is influenced by many pathophysiologic factors of interest in skeletal (including anthropological and paleontological) research, including local and systemic disease, nutrition, sex, age, species, physical activity, trauma, drugs, and toxic agents.

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