[Lucy's cancer(s): A prehistorical origin?]

Abstract

Objectives: The recent discovery of the earliest hominin cancer, a 1.7-million-year-old osteosarcoma from South Africa has raised the question of the origin of cancer and its determinants. We aimed to determine whether malignant and benign tumors exist in the past societies.

Methods: A review of literature using Medline database and Google about benign and malignant tumors in prehistory and antiquity. Only cases with morphological and paraclinical analysis were included. The following keywords were used: cancer; paleopathology; malignant neoplasia; benign tumor; leiomyoma; myoma; breast cancer; mummies; soft tissue tumor; Antiquity.

Results: Thirty-five articles were found in wich there were 34 malignant tumors, 10 benign tumors and 11 gynecological benign tumors.

Conclusions: The fact that there were some malignant tumors, even few tumors and probably underdiagnosed, in the past may be evidence that cancer is not only a disease of the modern world. Cancer may be indeed a moving target: we have likely predisposing genes to cancer inherited from our ancestors. The malignant disease could therefore appear because of our modern lifestyle (carcinogens and risk factors related to the modern industrial society).

Keywords: Anthropologie; Anthropology; Australopithecus afarensis; Cancer; Evolution; Fibrome utérin; Leiomyoma; Paleopathologie; Paleopathology; Évolution.