archaeological dig
(male, Late Bronze Age)
Photo by Wessex Archaeology
ZURICH—Researchers may have discovered the earliest known case of leukemia by imaging a 7000-year-old skeleton.
High-resolution CT scans revealed locally defined trabecular bone resorption in the sternum and humerus, which strongly suggests a case of leukemia, according to the researchers.
Heike Scherf, PhD, of Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen in Tübingen, Germany, and her colleagues presented this discovery at the Evolutionary Medicine Conference: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Human Health and Disease (abstract P-07).
A poster describing the research is available on ResearchGate.
Dr Scherf and her colleagues described a skeleton recovered from the early Neolithic Linear Pottery Culture site Stuttgart-Muhlhausen in southwest Germany, which dates back to 5700-4900 BP.
The skeleton belonged to a woman who was thought to be 30 to 40 years old at the time of her death. Previous analysis had revealed a severe case of dental caries with alveolar inflammation in this woman.
The high-resolution CT scans revealed loss of trabecular bone in both the humerus and the sternum.
Dr Scherf and her colleagues said the level of trabecular resorption in this skeleton is significantly higher than that observed in specimens of the same age group from the same site, as well as in recent human samples.
The researchers were able to rule out other conditions that might explain the bone resorption, including osteoporosis, hyperparathyroidism, and solid tumor malignancy.
They said the locally restricted resorption at sites of hematopoietic stem cell generation strongly suggests leukemia in its initial stages, although they were unable to identify the subtype.
Still, if the researchers’ interpretation of their findings is correct, this is the earliest case of leukemia reported.
