Computed Tomographic Assessment of Atherosclerosis in Ancient Egyptian Mummies
- Adel H. Allam, MDAl Azhar Medical SchoolCairo, Egypt;
- Randall C. Thompson, MDMid America Heart InstituteKansas City, Missouri;
- L. Samuel Wann, MDWisconsin Heart HospitalMilwaukee;
- Michael I. Miyamoto, MD, MSUniversity of California, San Diego;
- Gregory S. Thomas, MD, MPH gthomas9@mac.comUniversity of California, Irvine
Since this article does not have an abstract, we have provided the first 150 words of the full text.
To the Editor: The current epidemic of atherosclerosis is commonly ascribed to risk factors associated with the modern human lifestyle. Computed x-ray tomographic (CT) imaging can visualize calcium hydroxyapatite in vessel walls and is widely regarded as pathognomonic of atherosclerosis.1
Methods
To evaluate the presence of atherosclerosis in ancient humans, we performed whole-body, 6-slice CT using a Siemens Emotion 6 (Florsheim, Germany) on 22 mummies housed in the Egyptian National Museum of Antiquities in Cairo, Egypt, specifically searching for cardiac and vascular calcification. Mummies were selected for scanning based on a good state of preservation and were not randomly selected. Two mummies had been scanned previously and were included in this study because cardiovascular tissue was known to be present. The remaining 20 mummies underwent CT scanning in February 2009. Images were interpreted by consensus of 5 experienced cardiovascular imaging physicians (the authors).
Calcification in the wall of a clearly …
