Unique osteoid osteoma of the frontal sinus from the late Roman Empire

While wrongly considered a modern disease for a long time, palaeopathological research has shown cancer to have always existed in the human species, although with a lower frequency due, inter alia, to shorter lifespans in the past.1 Of the various kinds of osteomas of the frontal sinus, osteoid osteoma is considered an exceptionally rare find in this anatomical district, with only anecdotical reports in the specialized literature,2 since it preferentially localizes in the peripheral skeleton of the lower limbs. Osteoid osteoma is a benign skeletal neoplasm amounting to approximately 12% of all benign bone tumors, featuring a nidus often surrounded by an area of reactive bone formation. It occurs more frequently in males (2:1) in the first 2 decades of life.3–4 From a palaeopathological perspective, an extensive search of the literature demonstrates that no case of frontal sinus osteoid osteoma has been described yet. Here we report a unique case of this tumor in an ancient skeleton from the Late Roman Empire