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In a group of remains of more than 1,000 human beings, only a few had sequelae in their bone structure of cancer.
The Dakhleh Oasis is a place located in the west of Egypt, on the edge of the Sahara Desert It is an area that at first glance is something of renewed and sparsely populated. However, played a very important role in archaeological terms and today he has contributed to a very interesting fact about cancer .
The Dahleh Oasis Project (DOP) is a program that has been in place since 1978 . The studies that have been conducted have focused on archeology, paleontology, environmental studies, among others.
More than 1,000 human bodies dating from 1500 to 3000 years were found in a local cemetery. The researchers badyzed the skeletons for information that might be useful. They found something striking: out of 1,087 skeletons studied, at least 6 of them had cancer in life .
This, compared to the present, is a really low number. In their document, they compared the number with which the current society lives, that is to say 500 cases per 1,000 inhabitants . This would mean that at least the chances of having cancer would have increased up to 100 times during those years .
Evidence of cancer
Cancer often leaves sequelae to the bone structure of the someone who suffers . Thus, from the badysis made by specialists among the 1,087 bodies, only six had this disease
Three young adults (one man and two women) apparently had the human papillomavirus (HPV) . While the man had testicular cancer, the women suffered from cervical cancer of the uterus.
The mummy of an elderly man had retained soft tissue, including malignant tumor . According to an autopsy and a deep tissue badysis, it was discovered that she had suffered from rectal adenocarcinoma.
On the other hand, it is believed that another woman had bad, ovarian or colorectal cancer . Finally, because of the sequelae of the entire body of a young child, it is known that he died of leukemia .
The researchers explained that the low incidence of cancer in this human group is due to the short life expectancy at that time . It is believed that in ancient Egypt, only 7.7% of the population was 60 years old. On the other hand, it is known that a quarter of the current cases of cancer occur between 65 and 74 years of age.
On the other hand, they specified that their results did not mean that there were no more cases of the disease at that time . Cancer does not always leave marks on the skeleton, so the loss of soft tissue for millennia makes difficult the exact number
Yet, argues that the ancient population of Dakhleh must have had at least 50 fewer cases of the disease .
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