Oldest known case of metastasizing prostate carcinoma diagnosed in the skeleton of a 2,700-year-old Scythian king from Arzhan (Siberia, Russia).

To determine whether a 2,700-year-old tumor can be reliably diagnosed using microscopic and proteomic techniques and whether such prostate carcinomas show the same morphological pattern at the micro-level as modern-day carcinomas, this case was investigated. A 40-50-year-old Scythian king who lived during the Iron Age in the steppe of Southern Siberia (Russia) suffered from macroscopically visible osteoblastic and osteoclastic lesions throughout his entire skeleton. Macro-morphological (macroscopy, endoscopy, radiology) and micro-morphological techniques (histology, scanning-electron microscopy) as well as proteomic techniques (1-D- and 2-D-electrophoresis, Western blot) were applied.