Frontal sinus osteoma in a 16th century skeleton from Zagreb, Croatia

Zrinka Premužić; Petra Rajić Šikanjić; Boris Mašić

doi:10.1016/j.ijpp.2013.02.002

Frontal sinus osteoma in a 16th century skeleton from Zagreb, Croatia

Int J Paleopathol. 2013 Mar;3(1):54-58. doi: 10.1016/j.ijpp.2013.02.002. Epub 2013 Mar 30.

Authors

Zrinka Premužić¹, Petra Rajić Šikanjić², Boris Mašić³

Affiliations

¹ Institute for Anthropological Research, Gajeva 32, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia. Electronic address: zpremuzic@inantro.hr.
² Institute for Anthropological Research, Gajeva 32, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia.
³ Zagreb City Museum, Opatička 20, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia.

PMID: 29539360
DOI: 10.1016/j.ijpp.2013.02.002

Abstract

The analysis of 16th century graves from Zagreb, Croatia, revealed a case of frontal sinus osteoma in a middle-aged female. This lesion was discovered during visual examination, due to postmortem breakage of the frontal bone. The significance of this finding is based on the fact that frontal sinus osteomas are very rarely reported in the palaeopathological literature, despite the fact that they account for 80% of all paranasal sinus osteomas in modern populations. This paper presents results of macroscopic and radiographic analyses of the lesion, accompanied by a detailed differential diagnosis. Although tumours are commonly considered diseases of modern lifestyles, the described case confirms their occurrence in the past.