Fossil tumour is oldest evidence of ancient human cancer

A fossilized foot bone found in South Africa is the oldest evidence yet that ancient humans suffered from cancer, scientists say.

The bone, which dates back about1.7 million years, shows signs of osteosarcoma, or bone cancer.

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Scientists can't say for certain which exact category of early human ancestor the bone belongs to. Itwas recovered from the Swartkrans cave site,near Johannesburg.

"Modern medicine tends to assume cancers and tumours in humans are diseases caused by modern lifestyles and environments," said Edward Odes ofthe University of Witwatersrand, in remarks quoted by New Scientist.

He said finds like this show that humancancer occurred long before modern societies.

It's not known if the cancerous bone belonged to an adult or child. But modernosteosarcoma is known to be mostcommon in children and young adults. It typically occurs in fast-growing bones near the knee. Osteosarcoma was the kind of cancer that killed Marathon of Hope runner Terry Fox.

High-resolution 3D imaging

The discovery of the malignancy in the foot bone was made possible because of advances in high-resolution3D imaging methods.

The findingwas published online Thursday in theSouth African Journal of Science.

In the same journal, the same team of scientistsalso reported a groundbreaking finding ofan even older fossil that hadevidence of a tumour but that one was benign.

A 1.98-million-year-old vertebra of an Australopithecussedibayoungmalewas foundin a nearby site with evidence of a growth.

The previous oldest example of a benign hominintumour was believed to date to a fossil rib from a Neanderthal who lived 120,000 yearsago in what is now Croatia.

"Tumours of any kind are rare in archeological populations, and are all but unknown in the hominin record, highlighting the importance of this discovery," an abstract from the South African Journal of Science said.