Prostate cancer, with bone extensions, has been diagnosed in an Egyptian mummy that is more than 2000-years-old. This unique finding is part of an investigation called, Lisbon Mummy Project, that took place in Portugal, Lisbon. The exams, performed with Siemens technology, allowed the investigating team to reconstruct, without the usage of destructive methods, the entire mummified body in 3D, and to find the first case of prostate cancer detected in an Egyptian mummy, still in its original bands.

The Museu Nacional de Arqueologia (MNA), Imagens Médicas Integradas (IMI), Siemens and the Fundação Gulbenkian developed, for the first time in Portugal, a scientific study named, Lisbon Mummy Project. This initiative aimed to develop a radiological study focusing on three Egyptian mummies from the MNA collection – mummies that had not been analyzed before. The project consisted of non-destructive analyses: X-ray, digital X-ray, and the SOMATOM® Sensation 64 Cardiac multi-slice computed tomography (CT) scanner from Siemens. This is the oldest known case of prostate cancer in ancient Egypt and the second oldest case in the world: the earliest diagnosis of prostate cancer came from the 2700-year-old skeleton of a Scythian king in Russia. The scans detected many small, round, dense tumors in the first mummy’s pelvis and lumbar spine, as well as in his upper arm and bones in the legs; the areas most commonly affected by metastatic prostate cancer. The mummy, in which the cancer was detected, named M1, is from the Ptolemaic period (305-30 BC) and did not own a sarcophagus. When he died he was 51 to 60-years-old.

The Lisbon Mummy Project was launched at the end of August 2010 and focused on two mummies in closed sarcophagi (centuries III-I BC and IX-VIII BC, respectively) and the banded mummy from the Ptolemaic period. The investigating team was interested in gathering information from various fields: historical, archaeological, anthropological, and paleopathological. Luís Raposo, PhD, MNA director, coordinated the project, which was developed by a multi-disciplinary radiology, archaeology, and Egyptology team: Sandra Sousa, MD and Carlos Oliveira, MD, Luís Araujo, PhD, Universidade de Lisboa, and Álvaro Figueiredo, MD, University College of London. Carlos Prates, MD, coordinated the team from IMI, responsible for post-processing radiological images using advanced techniques. In addition to sponsoring this initiative, Siemens provided the workstation for the advanced post-processing of the acquired digital documentation, installed where the investigation was held on IMI grounds.