Cutaneous Cancers in Irrua, Edo State, Nigeria: A Six Year Review

Introduction: Cutaneous cancer is one of the leading malignancies in humans [1,2]. It is usually accessible and amenable by surgery [3]. There are different types of skin cancers; these include squamous cell carcinoma, basal cell carcinoma, and malignant melanoma and Kaposi sarcoma [3]. The most common in the Caucasians is the basal cell carcinoma while the reports from the Africans have shown that the squamous cell as the most common among them [2]. Most of the skin cancers rarely metastasized except in few cases: those who presented as advance lesions and Marjolin’s ulcers [4]. The skin malignancy can present in any age group but commoner from the sixth decade of life.

Methodology: This is a retrospective study of all the patients that presented with histological diagnoses of cutaneous cancers into the Irrua Specialist teaching Hospital, Irrua, Edo State Nigeria from September 2010 August 2016. The data were retrieved from the medical records which include the bio-data, the predisposing factor, site of the lesion, histological type. These data were collated and analyzed using the IBM SPSS version 22 (Chicago, Illinois).

Results: There were 46 patients with histological diagnoses of cutaneous cancers that presented during the period under review. The ages of the patients range from 19 years to 84 years. The mean age is 44.37 years SD 17.61 (with mean of 39.5 years). 65.22% (30) of the patients were in the third, fourth and fifth decades. There were 26 males and 20 females with male to female ratio of 1.3: 1. Squamous cell carcinoma was the most common histological type (60.9%) and albinism was the most common risk factor in the study (47.8%). The commonest site was head and neck 18 (39.1%) closely followed by lower limbs 16 (34.8%).

Conclusion: Squamous cell carcinoma is still the commonest type of skin cancers but albinism was the most common risk factor. This may be due to increase hospital presentation of the albinos. Prevention of skin cancers in albinos will most likely reduce the incidence of skin cancers by almost 50%.