title: Pectus excavatum in mummies from ancient Egypt.
abstract: Pectus excavatum is one of the common congenital anomalies, yet there seems to be a suspicious absence of any cases or descriptions of this deformity from antiquity. This could represent a real change in disease prevalence but is more likely just due to an inadequate reporting in medico-historical literature. The current study reviews reports of computed tomography (CT) scans of 217 ancient Egyptian mummies, revealing 3 presumed cases of this deformity. Therefore, pectus excavatum was in fact present already in ancient times, with prevalence roughly similar to the modern one.
authors.affiliation: Department of Microbiology, Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA jakub-kwiecinski@uiowa.edu jkwiecinski@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Jakub
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Kwiecinski
mesh_terms: D000076144:Egypt, Ancient; D005660:Funnel Chest / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000266:history*; D049690:History, Ancient; D006801:Humans; D009106:Mummies / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging / Q000266:history*; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed
keywords: Ancient Egypt; Computed tomography scan; Funnel chest; Mummies; Pectus excavatum