Ancient Egyptian skull shows oldest attempt at cancer surgery

A pair of ancient Egyptian skulls, both thousands of years old, belonged to some of the first known cancer patients in history, according to a study published Wednesday.

The skulls bore cut marks around cancerous growths, providing evidence that the ancient Egyptians explored ways to treat cancer through operations, according to the study published in the journal Frontiers in Medicine.

The ancient Egyptians were known for their medical expertise. The texts describe how they would treat a range of illnesses and injuries, in some cases by constructing prosthetics and inserting false teeth.

But this insight into cancer treatment constitutes a “milestone in the history of medicine,” according to the study.

“We find that even though the ancient Egyptians were capable of treating complex cranial fractures, cancer still remained a frontier in medical knowledge,” one of the study’s authors, Tatiana Tondini, said in a statement.

The study’s lead author, Professor Edgard Camarós, added that the discovery was “unique evidence of how ancient Egyptian medicine would have attempted to treat or explore cancer more than 4,000 years ago “.

Camarós, a paleopathologist at the University of Santiago de Compostela in Spain, and his team examined two skulls held by the Duckworth Collection at the University of Cambridge, using a microscopic scanner and microscopic analysis of the bone surface , according to the study.

“We wanted to know more about the role of cancer in the past, how prevalent this disease was in ancient times and how ancient societies interacted with this pathology,” said Tondini, a researcher at the German University of Tübingen.

One of the skulls belonged to a man and was dated to 2,687 to 2,345 BC, while the other was that of a woman and dated to 663 to 343 BC.

The man’s skull presented a large lesion surrounded by around thirty small metastasized lesions. To their surprise, the researchers discovered cut marks around the lesions.

“When we first looked at the cut marks under the microscope, we couldn’t believe what was in front of us,” Tondini said.

“It seems that the ancient Egyptians performed some kind of surgical procedure related to the presence of cancer cells,” said another co-author, Professor Albert Isidro, a surgical oncologist at Sagrat Cor University Hospital, Barcelona, ​​in Spain.

The woman’s skull also had a large lesion consistent with a cancerous tumor that had caused bone destruction, indicating the person may have been older. There are also two healed lesions following traumatic injuries, according to the study.