Did ancient Egyptians use surgery to treat brain cancer?

Canopic jars, which were made to store organs removed from the body in the process of mummification, are seen at the site of the Step Pyramid of Djoser in Saqqara, southwest of Cairo, Egypt [File: Amr Nabil/AP]

Ancient Egyptians may have tried to treat cancer with surgery more than 4,000 years ago, a study has revealed.

The findings were published in May in the journal Frontiers in Medicine and add to a growing body of work seeking to expand our understanding of how one of the world’s most important civilisations tried to tackle diseases, especially one as deadly as cancer.