Objectives: In previous work examining the etiology of cribra orbitalia (CO) and porotic hyperostosis (PH) in a contemporary juvenile mortality sample, we noted that males had higher odds of having CO lesions than females. Here, we examine potential reasons for this pattern in greater detail. Four non-mutually exclusive mechanisms could explain the observed sex differences: (1) sex-biased mortality; (2) sexual dimorphism in immune responses; (3) sexual dimorphism in bone turnover; or (4) sexual dimorphism in marrow conversion.
Subjects and methods: The sample consists of postmortem computed tomography scans and autopsy reports, field reports, and limited medical records of 488 individuals from New Mexico (203 females; 285 males) aged between 0.5 and 15 years. We used Kaplan-Meier survival analysis, predicted probabilities, and odds ratios to test each mechanism.
Results: Males do not have lower survival probabilities than females, and we find no indications of sex differences in immune response. Overall, males have a higher probability of having CO or PH lesions than females.
Conclusions: All results indicate that lesion formation in juveniles is influenced by some combination of sex differences in the pace of red-yellow conversion of the bone marrow and bone turnover. The preponderance of males with CO and PH likely speaks to the potential for heightened osteoblastic activity in males. We find no support for the hypotheses that sex biases in mortality or immune responses impacted lesion frequency in this sample. Sex differences in biological processes experienced by children may affect lesion formation and lesion expression in later life.
Keywords: anemia; cribra orbitalia; juvenile sex differences; porotic hyperostosis; postmortem computed tomography; skeletal indicators of stress.
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