Solid Tumours of Childhood in Sokoto, Nigeria

Saddiku M Sahabi, Kabiru Abdullahi, Christopher S Lukong C, Stephen P Agbo

Background:Childhood tumours are known to occur commonly in developing countries and in recent times there have been growing concerns about the incidence and management of these cancers in tropical Africa.We undertook this study to determine the relative frequencies of solid childhood malignancies in Sokoto North-western Nigeria. Materials and Methods: Hospital-based data of histological and cytologically confirmed cases of solidmalignancies in children, aged ≤ 15 years, was collated over a period of 10 years. All records of patients with the diagnosis of childhood malignancies were retrieved from histology and cytology register in the Department of Histopathology in the period,January 2006 to December 2015.All histological sections had been stained with haematoxylin and eosin (H&E and the cytological specimens were stained with both Papanicolaou and Giemsa stains. The data were analyzed for age, sex and histological types using SPSS version 20.0 software. The results are presented in form of simple frequency tables using Diagnostic guidelines by the International Classification of Childhood Cancer (ICCC). Results:A total of 358 children aged 15 years or less, with confirmed malignant disease, was recorded. This constituted 9.1% of all malignancies diagnosed in the same period with a Male: Female ratio of 1.2:1mean age (year) of 7.45.The age range was 0 to 15 years. There were more male cancers (n=196 54.7%) compared to female cancers (n=162, 45.3%).The top five childhood solid malignancies were Rhabdomyosarcoma 112(31.3), Retinoblastoma 62(17.3%), Burkitts lymphoma 45(12.6%), Nephroblastoma 31(8.7%) and Osteosarcoma 19(5.3%). Conclusion: Rhabdomyosarcoma is the most prevalent solid malignancy of childhood seen in this region and the majority were of the embryonal type,this contrasts with what is observed in developed countries where and neoplasms central nervous system predominate.