A skull reveals...the ancient Egyptians tried to treat cancer 4,000 years ago

Dubai, United Arab Emirates - Cancer is often viewed as a modern-day disease. However, medical texts from ancient Egypt indicate that the healers at that time were aware of this condition.

Now, new evidence in a skull more than 4,000 years old has revealed that ancient Egyptian doctors may have tried to treat some types of cancer with surgery. The skull belonged to a man who was between 30 and 35 years old when he died, and is in the collection of the Duckworth Laboratory at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom.

Since the mid-19th century, scientists have studied the scarred surface of the skull, including multiple lesions thought to represent bone damage from malignant tumors. Archaeologists consider the skull, number 236 in the collection, one of the oldest examples of malignant tumors in the ancient world, dating back to between 2686 and 2345 BC.

But when the researchers finally looked more closely at the tumor scars with a digital microscope and computed tomography (CT) scan, they discovered cut marks around the tumors, indicating that sharp metal tools had been used to remove the growth. Scientists published the results on Wednesday in the journal Frontiers in Medicine.

“This is the first time that humanity has surgically dealt with what we currently call cancer,” said the study’s senior author, Dr. Edgard Camaros, a professor in the Department of History at the University of Santiago de Compostela in Coruña, Spain. But it is not known whether the therapists tried to remove the tumors while the patient was still alive, or if the tumors were removed after death for analysis, according to what Camaros told Ofoq News.

“In both cases, it is surprising to think that they performed a surgical intervention,” Camaros added, adding, “But we cannot actually distinguish between treatment and autopsy.” Medical 'knowledge and mastery' Dr. Ibrahim Badr, assistant professor in the Department of Antiquities Restoration and Conservation at Misr University of Science and Technology in Giza, in Egypt, said that medicine in ancient Egypt, documented extensively in medical texts such as the Ebers Papyrus and the Kahun Papyrus, was undoubtedly sophisticated, and the new findings provide important and direct evidence of this knowledge. Badr, who was not involved in the new research, added: “We can know that ancient Egyptian medicine did not rely solely on herbal treatments like medicine in other ancient civilizations...it relied directly on surgical practices.”

Badr added that while this evidence from antiquity was well studied during the 19th and 20th centuries, 21st century techniques, like those used in the new study, are revealing previously unknown details about the medical arts of ancient Egypt. He pointed out that "this research provides a new and powerful direction for re-evaluating the history of medicine and pathology among the ancient Egyptians."

Scientists also found cancerous lesions in a second skull from the Duckworth collection. It is marked E270 and dates between 664 and 343 BC, and belongs to an adult woman who is at least 50 years old.

The team identified three lesions in the sample where malignant tumors had damaged bone. Unlike Skull 236, E270 showed no signs of undergoing surgery related to the disease.

But the woman's skull contains long-healed fractures, indicating successful prior medical intervention for head injuries. “This woman survived many years after that injury,” Camaros said.

Writing a “biography” of cancer. Badr, who is cooperating with scientists in Europe and the United States to study atherosclerosis (accumulation of plaques in the walls of arteries) in ancient Egyptian mummies, pointed out that the analysis of the two skulls “is a distinguished research that provides new and clear scientific evidence about the field of pathology and the development of medicine among the ancient Egyptians.” He explained that his work follows the same scientific trend as examining the skull.

By conducting detailed examinations of the mummies with 21st century techniques, such as CT scans and DNA sequencing, Badr and his colleagues hope to further illuminate the extent of medical knowledge in Egyptian antiquity. Badr said: “There is an urgent need to re-evaluate the history of Egyptian medicine using these scientific methodologies.

With these modern technologies, we will be able to study and gain a more comprehensive and accurate understanding of medicine in ancient Egypt.” For his part, Camaros explained that the new results also help to complete part of the “mysterious biography” of cancer by adding a chapter written thousands of years ago, adding that “the more we look into our past, the more we know that cancer was much more widespread and more present than we thought.”

Medical breakthrough The ancient Egyptians' perception of cancer revolved around the visible tumors produced by the disease. The first recorded observation of cancer is found in an ancient Egyptian medical text known as the Edwin Smith Surgical Papyrus, dating back to approximately 3000 to 2500 BC.

This text contains 48 monographs covering various treatments, including one description of breast cancer. Incisions around the skull tumors indicated that healers in ancient Egypt were trying to surgically remove the tumors either to cure the patient, or to examine the tumors more closely.