Evidence of surgical tumor removal in ancient Egyptian skull

Cancer is often regarded as a disease of the modern age. However, medical texts from ancient Egypt indicate that healers of the time were aware of the condition. Now, new evidence from a skull more than 4,000 years old has revealed that ancient Egyptian physicians may have tried to treat certain cancers with surgery.

The skull belonged to a man who was about 30 to 35 years old when he died, and it resides in the Duckworth Laboratory collection at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom. Since the mid-19th century, scientists have studied the skull’s scarred surface, including multiple lesions thought to represent bone damage from malignant tumors. Archaeologists regard the skull, labeled 236 in the collection, as one of the oldest examples of malignancy in the ancient world, dating back to between 2686 BC and 2345 BC.

But when researchers recently peered more closely at the tumor scars with a digital microscope and micro-computed tomography (CT) scans, they detected signs of cut marks around the tumors, suggesting that sharp metal instruments had been used to remove the growths. The scientists reported the findings Wednesday in the journal Frontiers in Medicine.

“It was the very first time that humanity was dealing surgically with what we nowadays call cancer,” said senior study author Dr. Edgard Camarós, a professor in the department of history at the University of Santiago de Compostela in Coruña, Spain.

However, it’s unknown whether the healers tried to remove the tumors while the patient was still alive, or if the tumors were removed after death, for analysis, Camarós told CNN.

“If those cut marks were done with that person alive, we’re talking about some kind of treatment directly related to the cancer,” he said. But if the cut marks were made posthumously, “it means that this is a medical autopsy exploration in relation to that cancer.”

Either way, “it’s amazing to think that they performed a surgical intervention,” Camarós added. “But we cannot actually distinguish between a treatment and an autopsy.”