Department of Archaeology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom.
McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom.
Cancer. 2021 Sep 1;127(17):3054-3059. doi: 10.1002/cncr.33615. Epub 2021 May 4.
To plan for cancer services in the future, the long view of cancer prevalence is essential. It might be suspected that cancer prevalence before tobacco and industrial revolution pollutants was quite different to today.
To quantify the degree to which cancer prevalence may be changing over time, the authors analyzed 143 skeletons from 6 cemeteries from the Cambridge area (6th-16th centuries). Visual inspection coupled with screening using both plain radiographs and computed tomography scans was used to detect malignant lesions.
A total of 3.5% of individuals showed evidence for metastases. Factoring in modern data for the proportion of those with cancer that die with bone metastases, this suggests a minimum prevalence of all cancers at the time of death in medieval Britain to be approximately 9% to 14% of adults.
This figure compares with a 40% to 50% prevalence of cancer at the time of death for modern Britain. The difference may be explained by the effects of modern carcinogens, the spread of viruses that trigger malignancy, industrial pollutants, and longer life expectancy.
Until now, no one has been able to work out how common cancer was before the time people were exposed to tumor-inducing chemicals from tobacco and industrial factories. In this novel study, the authors have determined the percentage of people living in medieval Britain who had cancer metastases to bone at the time of their death and then compared that with modern data. It was found that cancer was approximately 25% as common in medieval times as it is today. This article suggests cancer was much more widespread in medieval times than was previously realized.
为了规划未来的癌症服务，了解癌症流行的长期趋势至关重要。人们可能怀疑，在烟草和工业革命污染物出现之前，癌症的流行情况与今天大不相同。
为了量化癌症流行情况随时间变化的程度，作者分析了来自剑桥地区 6 个墓地的 143 具骨骼（6 世纪至 16 世纪）。作者采用肉眼观察与常规 X 线和计算机断层扫描相结合的方法来检测恶性病变。
共有 3.5%的个体有转移的证据。考虑到现代数据中癌症患者中死于骨转移的比例，这表明中世纪英国在死亡时所有癌症的最低流行率约为成年人的 9%至 14%。
这一数字与现代英国死亡时癌症的 40%至 50%的流行率相比较。这种差异可以用现代致癌物、引发恶性肿瘤的病毒传播、工业污染物和预期寿命延长的影响来解释。
到目前为止，还没有人能够计算出在人们接触到来自烟草和工业工厂的致癌化学物质之前，癌症的流行程度。在这项新的研究中，作者确定了生活在中世纪英国的人在死亡时患有癌症骨转移的比例，然后将其与现代数据进行了比较。结果发现，癌症在中世纪的流行程度大约是今天的 25%。本文表明，癌症在中世纪比以前认为的更为普遍。
