Doctors and nurses at Crouse Hospital met their oldest patient ever on Sunday.
He wasn’t the doctors’ average patient but, procedurally, it was just another CT Scan.
The patients name was Hen and his age was about 2,000 years old.
Betsy Kennedy at the Cazenovia Library explained, “Mr. Robert James Hubbard, in 1890, gave us the library building, and at that time he wanted it to be a museum as well. So, in 1894 he actually went to Egypt to buy a mummy and other Egyptian artifacts so that in Cazenovia we’d have a small museum.”
Fast forward to 2017. Doctors, nurses, and everyone interested watched as the Egyptian artifact was placed in a Crouse Hospital CT scanner for a checkup, much like the one he had ten years ago.
“He had a tumor on his Fibula which is one of the two bones of the lower leg,” added Dr. Mark Levinsohn “Looking at it, it had all the characteristics of a Malignant tumor and one that’s somewhat rare. So, here we have a rare circumstance and a rare tumor and that evoked our interest a lot.”
But science hadn’t quite caught up. In 2006, the CT scan and biopsy tools were unable to determine the exact type of cancer the mummy had.
Dr. Levinsohn and everyone watching was hoping this time would be different. “Since that time, the last ten years, they’ve upgraded the equipment,” he explained. “What, at that time was a 16 detector scanner is now a 320 detector scanner and all that additional information is now derived when we scan the body. So, we can tell all kinds of greater detail.”
As for who was paying for Hen’s health insurance bill, we’re told it was taken care of. All labor and services were donated.
While the samples are already being tested, they may not be ready for a few months.
