Pattern of Breast Masses in Lagos: A Private Health Facility Review of 189 Consecutive Patients

BACKGROUND:The increasing awareness concerning breast cancer has led to significant interest in breast masses in general. As a result there is considerable interest in the clinicopathologic studies of breast masses in various populations. OBJECTIVE: To study the clinicopathologic pattern of breast masses at a private health facility in Lagos; Nigeria. METHOD: The records of all patients who presented between January 1993 and December 2002 with breast lumps at the Lagoon Hospital Apapa were reviewed. Their biodata; clinical presentation and histopathological diagnosis were retrieved. RESULTS: 189 consecutive patients were studied comprising of 180 females and nine males. The peak age incidence for benign disease was 21-30 years while it was 31-40 years for those with malignant masses. Majority (66.1) presented with painless solitary lumps. 46 (77.2) patients had benign lumps while 43 (22.8) had malignant lesions. The commonest benign lesion was fibrocystic disease (47.9) while infiltrating ductal carcinoma was the commonest pathological diagnosis in the malignant group (83.1). CONCLUSION: From this study benign breast masses outnumber malignant ones by more than 3:1 in this population. The commonest pathological diagnosis was fibrocystic disease in benign lesions and infiltrating ductal carcinoma for malignant masses

Laboratory rodent models for the tapeworm-stage of Taenia saginata and other related taeniid species.

Attempts were carried out to establish alternative definitive host systems for Taenia saginata, T. crassiceps, T. hydatigena, Echinococcus multilocularis and E. granulosus, in rodents. Following oral inoculation of cysticerci or protoscoleces, the tapeworm-stage development and sexual maturation of the 5 taeniid species in the intestine of a golden hamster (GH) and Mongolian gerbil (MG), both treated with prednisolone, were examined. Sexually mature T. saginata tapeworms were recovered from MG pretreated with prednisolone. The life cycles of E. multilocularis can be completed in MG and T. crassiceps in both MG and GH. T. hydatigena and E. granulosus developed to a certain extent at the tapeworm stage in MG pretreated with prednisolone. Potential use of rodents as an alternative definitive host for taeniid species is discussed.

Detection of Eschericia Coli enterotoxin from stool sample directly by Bead ELISA method

Bacterial protein toxins as Escherichia coli enterotoxigenic heat labile toxin (LT), E. coli shigella like toxin I (VT1), E. coli shegella like toxin 2 (VT2) and cholera toxin where detected directly from stool using Bead ELISA method. A total of 390 stools from adults with diarrhoea and dysentery from 2 Military Hospital, Workers Hospital, Yangon General Hospital and Infectious Diseases Hospital were included in this study. It was observed that 9, 5 and 10 samples of stools showed to possess LT, VT1, VT2 toxin respectively. Some of the samples showed to possess either 2 or 3 toxins in combination. Of these, 2 samples showed to possess LT and VT1 toxins; 3 samples showed to possess LT and VT2 toxin; 11 samples showed to possess VT1 and VT2 toxin and 14 samples showed to possess LT, VT1 and VT2 toxins. Thus a total of 54 samples (13.8 per cent) showed to possess bacterial toxins. It was also observed that 28 samples out of 199 cases (14.1 per cent); 20 out of 109 cases (18.3 per cent) and 6 out of 82 cases (7.3 per cent) showed to possess bacterial toxin in January, June and November 1988 respectively. Moreover, cholera toxin was detected from 5 out of 25 cases tested.