This image show the mummy of an ancient Egyptian man in his 50s who had rectal cancer. 
 
 Archaeologists have uncovered six cases of cancer while studying the bodies of ancient Egyptians who were buried long ago in the Dakhleh Oasis. The finds include a toddler with leukemia, a mummified man in his 50s with rectal cancer and individuals with cancer possibly caused by human papillomavirus (HPV). 
 
 The researchers found these cancer cases while examining the remains of 1,087 ancient Egyptians buried between 3,000 and 1,500 years ago. 
 
 Extrapolating from these cases, the researchers estimated that the lifetime cancer risk in the ancient Dakhleh Oasis was about 5 in 1,000, compared with 50 percent in modern Western societies, wrote El Molto and Dr. Peter Sheldrick in a paper published in a special cancer issue of the International Journal of Paleopathology. "Thus, the lifetime cancer risk in today's Western societies is 100 times greater than in ancient Dakhleh," they wrote. [Photos: Ancient Egyptian Cemetery with 1 Million Mummies] 
 
 Molto, a retired anthropology professor at Western University in Ontario, Canada, cautioned that some people living at Dakhleh could have died of cancer without any traces being left in their remains and that people in the ancient world tended to have shorter life spans than people today. However, even accounting for these factors, the researchers believe the risk of cancer was considerably lower in ancient Egypt. 
 
 In five of the six cases, scientists determined that they had cancer by studying lesions (holes and bone damage) on their skeletons. Those holes were left when cancer spread throughout their bodies. For instance, a woman in her 40s or 50s had a hole on her right hip bone that is about 2.4 inches (6.2 cm) in size that researchers believe was caused by a tumor. In one case (the man in his 50s with rectal cancer), an actual tumor was preserved. Researchers cannot be certain where the cancers originated in many of the cases. 
 
 Three of the six cases (two females and one male) were people in their 20s or 30s, an age when it is rare for people to get cancer, the researchers said. 
 
 An ancient Egyptian woman in her 20s suffered from cancer that had spread to her skull. She may have had the HPV virus, researchers believe. Credit: Image courtesy El Molto 
 
 "When the Dakhleh cases were first presented at professional meetings, a common comment against accepting the diagnosis of cancer was that 'their ages were too young,'" wrote Molto and Sheldrick, a physician in Chatham, Ontario, in their paper, referring to the three young adults. [Image Gallery: Digging Up a Cemetery in Dakhleh Oasis] 
 
 However, recent research has revealed that HPV is a major cause of several forms of cancer, including those that often affect young adults. "HPV is a confirmed cause of cancer of the uterine cervix and testes, and it evolved in Africa long before Homo sapiens emerged," wrote Molto and Sheldrick in their paper. 
 
 "The two female and the male burials from Dakhleh, all young adults, could have, respectively, developed cancer of the uterine cervix and testicular cancer," the authors wrote. "We know from current cancer epidemiology research that both types of cancers peak in the young adult cohorts." 
 
 While scientists were not able to genetically test the three young adults to see if they had HPV, other studies confirm that it did exist in the ancient world, Molto and Sheldrick wrote, noting that the virus likely existed in the ancient Dakhleh Oasis. 
 
 So far, research into Egyptian medical texts and human remains have revealed no indication that the ancient Egyptians had a specific treatment for cancer. 
 
 This image shows an ancient Egyptian child from the Dakhleh Oasis who was between 3 and 5 years old at death. This child died of leukemia, research indicates. His bones were riddled with holes caused by the disease. Credit: Image courtesy El Molto 
 
 "They knew that something nasty was going on," Molto told Live Science. However, "we have no indication as to specific treatments for cancer, because they didn't understand [what cancer was]," Molto said, adding that the ancient Egyptians may have tried to treat some of the symptoms such as skin ulcers. 
 
 The researchers said they hope that in the future, data will be gathered on cancer and other diseases in the modern-day Dakhleh Oasis. This data could then be compared to the ancient rate to provide more clues as to how the risk of cancer has changed over time. 
 
 Originally published on Live Science. ||||| Bones bearing signs of cancer found in an ancient Egyptian cemetery reveal that the often devastating disease is much more prevalent now than it was in the people who lived near the Dakhleh Oasis. 
 
 Out of 1,087 skeletons buried between 1,500 and 3,000 years ago, just 6 were found with cancer - two younger women with cervical cancer, and a man with testicular cancer, which have all been associated with HPV; and an older mummified man with colorectal cancer, an older woman with metastatic carcinoma, and a toddler with leukaemia. 
 
 That's a rate of 5 cases in 1,000 - compared to today, where the cancer rate in Western societies approaches 500 per 1,000 people - a lifetime cancer risk 100 times greater than what it was in the ancient Dakhleh in Egypt's Western Desert. 
 
 Because soft tissue doesn't often survive millennia, the researchers looked for the traces cancer leaves on bone. 
 
 Lesions found on the skeletons were consistent with carcinoma, and, although it's difficult to diagnose based simply on bones, the researchers were able to determine the most likely types based on the distribution and types of legion, as well as the age and sex of the person. 
 
 Three of them - two women and a man - fell outside the normal age range, dying in their 20s and 30s. 
 
 "When the Dakhleh cases were first presented at professional meetings a common comment against accepting the diagnosis of cancer was that 'their ages were too young'!" the researchers, anthropologist El Molto of The University of Western Ontario and Ontario physician Peter Sheldrick, wrote in their paper. 
 
 But the 25-30-year-old male was likely afflicted with testicular cancer, since that age is the highest risk group, and the two young women were most likely afflicted by cervical cancer. 
 
 Both of these types of cancer are linked with HPV, recent research has found (although its implication in testicular cancer is rare) - and HPV has been around for a very long time, much longer than the age of the bones. 
 
 And all strains of the virus evolved in Africa. 
 
 "The two female and the male burials from Dakhleh, all young adults, could have respectively developed cancer of the uterine cervix and testicular cancer," Molto and Sheldrick wrote. 
 
 "We know from current cancer epidemiology research that both types of cancers peak in the young adult cohorts and the HPV risk factor would have likely been present the paleoecology of ancient Dakhleh." 
 
 Interestingly, the older male mummy had soft tissue preserved, including a tumour. This meant that a full autopsy and tissue analysis could be performed, positively identifying rectal adenocarcinoma. 
 
 The older woman most likely had ovarian, breast, or colorectal cancer; and the child, in whom almost every single bone showed signs of a systemic disease, probably had acute leukaemia, given its prevalence among that age group. 
 
 There are some caveats guiding estimates of the prevalence of cancer in ancient Egypt. Firstly, the average lifespan was shorter - only 7.7 percent of the ancient Dakhlans were estimated to be over 60 years of age, the researchers said. 
 
 Given that a quarter of new cancer cases are diagnosed between the ages of 65 and 74, according to the US National Cancer Council, this shorter lifespan could impact lifetime cancer risk. 
 
 Another factor that could affect results is the relative lack of soft tissue. Cancer doesn't always leave a mark on bones, so there could have been some cases among the 1,087 skeletons that the researchers missed. 
 
 Even accounting for these caveats, however, Molto and Sheldrick believe that the prevalence of cancer was still at least 50 times lower in ancient Dakhleh. 
 
 "In our opinion, it is doubtful that even if the ancient Dakhlans had the same life expectancy as modern western societies the rate of cancer would have been equivalent," they wrote in their paper. 
 
 "The carcinogenic load in their past environments would have been considerably less carcinogenic than modern western societies." 
 
 The research has been published in the International Journal of Paleopathology.
– Diagnoses have just been made for patients who've been dead for thousands of years. Researchers digging in Egypt have uncovered six cases of cancer among ancient Egyptians, including a young child with leukemia, a middle-aged woman with a carcinoma—most likely ovarian, breast, or colorectal cancer—and a middle-aged man with a preserved tumor indicating rectal cancer, per Live Science and ScienceAlert. Based on those and three other cancer cases perhaps caused by the human papillomavirus (HPV), found among the remains of 1,087 Egyptians buried 1,500 to 3,000 years ago in a cemetery in the Dakhleh Oasis, researchers say ancient residents had a 0.5% risk of developing cancer during their lifetimes, compared to the "100 times greater" risk of 50% for people living in the West today. In most cases, researchers had to identify cancers based on bone damage, including holes left by tumors, and admit traces of disease could've long ago vanished. Still, the finding makes sense since ancient Egyptians had significantly shorter life spans than modern humans (which would affect lifetime cancer risk) and "the carcinogenic load in their past environments would have been considerably less carcinogenic than modern Western societies," anthropologist El Molto and doctor Peter Sheldrick write in the International Journal of Paleopathology. As three of the six cases occurred in people who died relatively young, in their 20s and 30s, the pair suspect HPV could be to blame. "HPV is a confirmed cause of cancer of the uterine cervix and testes" and "both types of cancers peak in the young adult cohorts," write the authors, who found no evidence of cancer treatment. (A 3,000-year-old prosthesis has been found.)