In Vivo Osteocyte Death

Abstract

Counts of the percentage of empty osteocyte lacunae were done on fresh, undecalcified bone sections of specimens from forty-five human subjects ranging in age from new-born infancy to eighty-four years. The average figures from arbitrary age groups suggest that an increasing percentage of bone dies with increasing age. At seventy years, 45 per cent of Haversian bone and 75 per cent of extra-Haversian bone have empty lacunae.