Calculation of age at formation of radiopaque transverse lines

Abstract

A simple method for determining the age of an individual at the time of radiopaque transverse (Harris) line formation is presented. To use this method, only two measurements are required: total bone length and distance of line to nearest bone end; these are put into formulae that calculate the percent of total bone growth when the line appeared. The result of this calculation is compared with tables of percent bone growth per year (one to 16 years in females and one to 18 years in males) to arrive at estimations of age at line formation. Since these tables are presented for the femur, tibia, humerus, and radius, this technique can be used on any one of the major long bones exhibiting lines.

Harris lines of the tibia across centuries: a comparison of two populations, medieval and contemporary in Central Europe

“…Some studies showed that Harris lines may disappear over time as part of an active remodelling of living bone [3,4,6,9,25,26]. In a prospective study, Hummert and Van Gerven [6] found that Harris lines did not persist after a time period of 10 years.…”

Harris lines revisited: Prevalence, comorbidities, and possible etiologies

“…The three estimation methods for age-at-formation of HLs (Byers, 1991;Clarke, 1982;Maat, 1984) were compared using the method described by Altman and Bland (1983) and Bland and Altman (2010). The application of this method is appropriate in order to avoid the theoretical weakness of regression analysis.…”

“…1). For adults, the age-at-formation was computed using the methods of Clarke (1982), Maat (1984), Byers (1991) and for subadults using to the method of Hummert and Van Gerven (1985).…”

“…[The Harris lines tool by Suter et al (2008) may be downloaded and used for research purposes from www.harrislinestool.com. The aim of the present article is to apply the new technique to a large skeletal series and to compare, in particular, the age-at-formation calculation methods (Byers, 1991;Clarke, 1982;Hummert and Van Gerven, 1985;Maat, 1984). Furthermore, there is a need to develop a mathematical framework in order to convert age-at-formation results of one method to another age-at-formation calculation method.…”

“…The existence of various methods (Byers, 1991;Clarke, 1982;Hummert and Van Gerven, 1985;Maat, 1984) to compute the age-at-formation of HLs, creates a plurality of applied methods in different studies. Therefore, this plurality of methods increases the time required for the analysis itself as well as confounding the comparison between different studies.…”