The earliest known case of frontal sinus osteoma in man

Frontal sinus osteoma is a relatively common finding in the modern clinical setting. Although, its paleopathological record is not in dispute, its presence in Ancient Egypt has never been clarified. The aim of this article is to contribute to the debate. An Egyptian mummy head from the Musée d'Éthnographie de Neuchâtel (Switzerland) was studied radiologically and the obtained evidence was contextualized in the wider frame of multidisciplinary paleopathology. A 128-slice CT scanner was used for further investigation; datasets were processed with OsiriX-64 bit (version 5.8.5), and multiplanar (MPR) and volumetric reconstructions were performed. A small hyperdense and well-defined structure, most likely an osteoma, was identified in the right frontal sinus. Frontal sinus osteoma definitely existed in Ancient Egypt. Finally, this represents the oldest case in anatomically modern humans so far reported. Clin. Anat.32:105-109, 2019. © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.