Even Neanderthals had bone cancer

120,000 year old find: Even Neanderthals had bone cancer

08/06/2013

A common opinion about cancer states that they are to be regarded as a kind of modern civilization diseases. However, a spectacular bone find tells us otherwise: even 120,000 years ago, Neanderthals had cancer.

100 year old find was investigated
For decades, scientists have been concerned with the question of whether cancer is a modern phenomenon or is much older. The British edition of the International Business Times reports that US researchers have found that Neanderthals had cancer as early as 120,000 years ago. The bone deposit to which they refer was found more than 100 years ago in Krapina, 55 kilometers north of the Croatian capital Zagreb. In an investigation of the find now made the US anthropologist David W. Frayer of the University of Kansas an amazing discovery. The examined Neanderthal bone was affected by a fibrous dysplasia, a benign tumor that also occurs today. Professor Frayer concludes: "This is proof that Neanderthals suffered from tumors - that they were susceptible to the same diseases as they occur in modern humans." Previous findings from bone tumors are only 1,000 to 4,000 years old and thus the age record is more surpassed as 100,000 years.

The unknown cancer patient
The approximately 30 millimeters large fragment was part of a left rib and was discovered between 1899 and 1905 in a cave in Croatia. Since the bone fragment could not be assigned to a complete skeleton, it is unknown whether the tumor occurred in a man or a woman and just as old as the person was. But it was clear: "It was not a small tumor," says anthropology expert Frayer. "It was a fairly large tumor, which probably grew at the bottom of the rib." However, whether or not the human died of the tumor at that time remains unknown. Since cancer is primarily an age disease and Neanderthals were on average only half as old as today's people, such cancer findings are extremely rare.

Cancer too without modern environmental factors
The research team around Frayer had examined the find using computed tomography and X-rays, but since the lower part of the rib has broken off, the researchers suspect that the tumor must have been larger than can be seen from the surviving piece. The researchers also point out in the journal "Plos One" that cancer already occurred in early humans, "although they were exposed to completely different environmental factors than we are today." (Sb)

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