Emily Chan
More than 4,000 years ago, ancient Egyptians were surgically treating cancer. After analyzing a human skull, scientists found out that doctors in ancient Egypt may have conducted surgery to treat brain cancer.
The discovery puts cancer research at 1,000 years earlier than previously believed. The skull was from the Duckworth Collection at the University of Cambridge.
It dates back between 2687 and 2345 B.C.E. It belonged to a man between the ages of 30 and 35. Experts have been examining the man’s remains since the middle of the 19th century.
The skull contained evidence of a large brain tumor and over 30 smaller metastasized lesions. When researchers put the skull under a microscope and performed microtomography scans, they found cut marks around the areas where the lesions were.
They concluded that the incisions were made by a sharp metal object, proving that ancient doctors were trying to learn more about cancer through surgery.
“What we found is the first evidence of a surgical intervention directly related to cancer,” said Edward Camarós, a co-author of the study and a paleopathologist at the University of Santiago de Compostela in Spain. “This is where modern medicine starts.”
Previously, the earliest description of cancer came from an ancient Egyptian medical text written around 1600 B.C. called the Edwin Smith Papyrus. The text detailed the presence of multiple breast tumors but claimed that there was no treatment for them.
The new findings have shifted the timeline of when modern medicine and the first cancer treatments began, moving the date back 1,000 years. It is unclear whether the incisions were made while the patient was still alive or after his death.
“If those cut marks were done with that person alive, we’re talking about some kind of treatment directly related to the cancer,” Camarós said. “[Either way,] it’s amazing to think that they performed a surgical intervention.”
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