68 million years ago, a Tyrannosaurus rex that roamed the Earth suffered from a bone disease in its jaw , a recent investigation finds.
Using a CT scanner and a technique called dual-energy computed tomography (DECT), a team of scientists in Germany has identified a bone disease called tumefactive osteomyelitis in the fossilized jaw of a Tyrannosaurus rex , suggesting that the tyrannosaurs suffered from bone infections. .
Images of the T. rex’s jaw showed thickening and a mass on its surface that extended to the roots of the teeth , according to study lead author Charlie Hamm, a radiologist at Charité University Hospital in Berlin. They detected a significant amount of fluoride in the mass, an indication of decreased bone density, which could have been caused by inflammation or swelling in the jaw bone.
“While this is a proof-of-concept study, non-invasive DECT images that provide structural and molecular information on unique fossil objects have the potential to address an unmet need in paleontology, avoiding defragmentation or destruction,” the authors explain.
This discovery comes just over a year after the first evidence emerged of a living dinosaur with a malignant cancer spreading through its body.
In humans, ostiomyelitis is most common in children under the age of five, but it can occur at any age.
Referencia: 2021 Annual Meeting of the Radiological Society of North America.
