[Tutankhamun and sickle-cell anaemia].
After casting doubt on malaria as the cause of death for Tutankhamun, the author points out that the hypothesis of homozygotic sickle-cell anaemia, or a double HbS/β₀thal heterozygosis, is hardly more credible. To have any chance of being valid, any such hypothesis would have to involve a combination of at least three rare factors: survival until the age of 19 of a subject with homozygotic sickle-cell anaemia, with a probability at birth as to a life expectancy of more than five years probably standing at less than 5%, and with, for all bone sequelae and anomalies, osteonecrosis whose location is characteristic, not of sickle-cell anaemia, but rather of a case of Freiberg-Kohler syndrome, which is also rare, but which is on the other hand fully compatible with the condition of the mummy's skeleton.
Pays
J-F
JF
Faculté de Médecine René-Descartes-Necker, 156 Rue de Vaugirard, F-75015, Paris, France. pays@necker.fr
D000755:Anemia, Sickle Cell; D000076144:Egypt, Ancient; D005197:Famous Persons; D049690:History, Ancient