A comprehensive diagnostic approach combining phylogenetic disease bracketing and CT imaging reveals osteomyelitis in a Tyrannosaurus rex.

ABSTRACT: Traditional palaeontological techniques of disease characterisation are limited to the analysis of osseous fossils, requiring several lines of evidence to support diagnoses. This study presents a novel stepwise concept for comprehensive diagnosis of pathologies in fossils by computed tomography imaging for morphological assessment combined with likelihood estimation based on systematic phylogenetic disease bracketing. This approach was applied to characterise pathologies of the left fibula and fused caudal vertebrae of the non-avian dinosaur Tyrannosaurus rex. Initial morphological assessment narrowed the differential diagnosis to neoplasia or infection. Subsequent data review from phylogenetically closely related species at the clade level revealed neoplasia rates as low as 3.1% and 1.8%,

SUBMITTER: Hamm CA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7642268 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature