[Correspondence] Cancer in the Renaissance court of Naples

Cancer nowadays is the second most common cause of death in high-income countries. However, only five cases of malignant-soft-tissue tumours are present in the palaeopathological literature.1 The rarity of cancer in antiquity is a highly debated problem and the main reasons are apparently the short lifespan of past populations, the scarcity of mummified remains, and the technical difficulties of detecting neoplastic lesions in mummified tissues.2

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