Suggested Case of Langerhans Cell Histiocytosis in a Cretaceous dinosaur

Abstract

Susceptibility to diseases is common to humans and dinosaurs. Since much of the biological history of every living creature is shaped by its diseases, recognizing them in fossilized bone can furnish us with important information on dinosaurs' physiology and anatomy, as well as on their daily activities and surrounding environment. In the present study, we examined the vertebrae of two humans from skeletal collections with Langerhans Cell Histiocytosis (LCH), a benign osteolytic tumor-like disorder involving mainly the skeleton; they were diagnosed in life, along with two hadrosaur vertebrae with an apparent lesion. Macroscopic and microscopic analyses of the hadrosaur vertebrae were compared to human LCH and to other pathologies observed via an extensive pathological survey of a human skeletal collection, as well as a three-dimensional reconstruction of the lesion and its associated blood vessels from a µCT scan. The hadrosaur pathology findings were indistinguishable from those of humans with LCH, supporting that diagnosis. This report suggests that hadrosaurids had suffered from larger variety of pathologies than previously reported. Furthermore, it seems that LCH may be independent of phylogeny.Understanding diseases that affected dinosaurs may shed additional light on their biology, daily living, and the environments in which they thrived. Despite the huge time gap between dinosaurs and humans, both were susceptible to diseases that shaped and greatly affected their evolutionary history. Thus, recognition of skeletal manifestations of specific diseases in humans may assist in identifying them in dinosaurs as well. For example, gout was recognized in tyrannosaurids 1 , osteoarthritis in Iguanodon 2 , and diffuse idiopathic skeletal hyperostosis (DISH) in Apatosaurus 3 . Neoplasms (cancer), albeit more difficult to diagnose (several misclassified cases were published in the past years), have also been identified in dinosaurs 4,5 . Disease occurrence in dinosaurs is very infrequent. When present, however, it can tell us about dinosaurs' immune systems, metabolic disorders, growth and adaptation to a huge body mass, infections, environment, as well as shed light on their mating patterns and hunting techniques.Herbivorous hadrosaurs, also referred to as "duck-billed" dinosaurs, have a near-global Late Cretaceous fossil record. They reached a length of over ten meters, weighed several tons, and appear to have lived in large herds. They are particularly well-known in southern Alberta, Canada where individual bones and teeth occur in abundance. In addition, several dozen hadrosaur-dominated bonebeds and hundreds of partial-to-complete skeletons have been discovered. In Dinosaur Provincial Park, examples of hadrosaur osteopathy are so common that more than half a dozen examples can be found daily by an experienced field worker. A number of hadrosaur taxa are known from the Park: the cranially uncrested Gryposaurus and Prosaurolophus as well as the crested Corythosaurus and Lambeosaurus are the most common. Trauma, in ...

A new styracosternan hadrosauroid (Dinosauria: Ornithischia) from the Early Cretaceous of Portell, Spain

“…Neoplastic disease is rare in vertebrate fossils [ 58 , 59 , 61 ], also few metabolic disorders have been described, such as Paget’s disease or gout [ 58 ]. Other authors, suggested that pathological processes are independent of phylogeny and time [ 60 ].…”

Taphonomy and taxonomy of a juvenile lambeosaurine (Ornithischia: Hadrosauridae) bonebed from the late Campanian Wapiti Formation of northwestern Alberta, Canada

“…Full features resulting from Langerhans Cell Histiocytosis inferred in other hadrosaurids, based on its smooth margin and "wrinkled" internal surface (Rothschild et al, 2020). However, it is intuitively implausible that an osteologically borne disease instigated the mass mortality event.…”

Utilization of validated criteria for diagnostic assessment in nonsynchronous, allopatric populations: Role in archeologic diagnosis of rheumatoid arthritis and differentially distinguishing it from mimics

“…Even the classic alteration found in some individuals with gout can also be found with amyloidosis and multicentric reticulohistiocytosis (Resnick, 2002;Rothschild, 1982). There are exceptions (e.g., diarthrodial joint osteophytes identifying osteoarthritis, Altman et al, 1986Altman et al, , 1990Altman et al, , 1991 and crenulated changes identifying Langerhans cell histiocytosis (Rothschild et al, 2020)].…”