Explore history of cancer

  • 1750 BCE

    Babylonian code of Hammurabi set standard fee for surgical removal of tumors (ten shekels) and penalties for failure.

  • 1600 BCE

    EGYPT
    Ancient Egyptian scrolls describe eight cases of breast tumors treated by cauterization.

  • 400 BCE

    GREECE
    Hippocrates (460–370 BCE), the “Father of Medicine,” was the first to recognize differences between benign and malignant tumors.

  • 50 AD

    ITALY
    The Romans found some tumors could be removed by surgery and cauterized, but thought medicine did not work.

  • 1733 – 1788

    FRANCE
    Physicians and scientists performed systematic experiments on cancer, leading to oncology as a medical specialty.

  • 1761

    ITALY
    Giovanni Morgagni performed the first autopsies to relate the patient’s illness to the science of disease.

  • 1761

    UNITED KINGDOM
    Dr. John Hill published “Cautions Against the Immoderate Use of Snuff,” the first report linking tobacco and cancer.

  • 1845

    UNITED KINGDOM
    John Hughes Bennett was the first to describe leukemia as an excessive proliferation of blood cells.

  • 1890s

    USA
    Professor William Stewart Halsted at Johns Hopkins University developed the radical mastectomy for breast cancer, removing breast, underlying muscles, and lymph nodes under the arm.

  • 1911

    FRANCE
    Marie Curie was awarded a second Nobel Prize, this time in chemistry, in recognition of her work in radioactivity.

  • 1900 - 1950

    Radiotherapy - the use of radiation to kill cancer cells or stop them dividing - was developed as a treatment.

  • 1928

    GREECE
    George Papanicolaou (1883–1962) identified malignant cells among the normal cast-off vaginal cells of women with cancer of the cervix, which led to the Pap smear test.

  • 1930

    GERMANY
    Researchers in Cologne drew the first statistical connection between smoking and cancer.

  • 1950

    USA
    The link between smoking and lung cancer was confirmed.

  • 1956

    USA
    Dr. Min Chiu Li (1919–1980) first demonstrated clinically that chemotherapy could result in the cure of a widely metastatic malignant disease.

  • 1973

    USA
    Bone marrow transplantation first performed successfully on a dog in Seattle by Dr. E. Donnall Thomas (1920–2012).

  • 1970s

    Childhood leukemia became one of the first cancers that could be cured by a combination of drugs.

  • 1981

    JAPAN
    Professor Takeshi Hirayama (1923–95) published the first report linking passive smoking and lung cancer in the non-smoking wives of men who smoked.

  • 1980s

    AUSTRALIA
    Barry Marshall and J. Robin Warren identified bacterium H. pylori, noting it caused duodenal and gastric ulcers and increased the risk of gastric cancer.

  • 1989

    European Network of Cancer Registries (ENCR) established.

  • 1994

    USA, CANADA, UNITED KINGDOM, FRANCE, JAPANScientists collaborated and discovered the first known breast and ovarian cancer predisposing gene.

  • 1999

    NETHERLANDS, USA
    Jan Walboomers of the Free University of Amsterdam and Michele Manos of Johns Hopkins University provided evidence that the human papillomavirus (HPV) is present in 99.7% of all cases of cervical cancer.

  • 2004

    SWITZERLAND
    WHO cancer prevention and control resolution approved by World Health Assembly.

  • 2005

    WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control came into force.

  • 2006

    USA
    The US Federal Drug Administration approved the first HPV vaccine to prevent infections that cause cervical cancer.
    https://canceratlas.cancer.org/history-cancer/21st-century/