Brief history about cancer

Cancer is the second leading cause of death in the world after cardiovascular diseases. Half of men and one third of women in the United States will develop cancer during their lifetimes. Today, millions of cancer people extend their life due to early identification and treatment. Cancer is not a new disease and has afflicted people throughout the world. The word cancer came from a Greek words karkinos to describe carcinoma tumors by a physician Hippocrates (460–370 B.C), but he was not the first to discover this disease. Some of the earliest evidence of human bone cancer was found in mummies in ancient Egypt and in ancient manuscripts dates about 1600 B.C. The world’s oldest recorded case of breast cancer hails from ancient Egypt in 2500 -3000BC and it was recorded that there was no treatment for the cancer, only palliative treatment. The details were recorded on a papyrus, documenting 8 cases of tumors occurring in the breast. It was treated by cauterization, a method to destroy tissue with a hot instrument called “the fire drill”. There is evidence that the ancient Egyptians were able to tell the differences between malignant and benign tumors. According to inscriptions, surface tumors were surgically removed in a similar manner as they are removed today.