Pathologic Features of Vascular Tumours in Infants and Children in Lagos, Nigeria

Background: This study was done to review the histopathologic characteristics of vascular tumours in infants and children in Lagos, Nigeria.
Method: Fifty-two vascular tumours of children 0-14 years of age that had been histologically diagnosed in the Department of Morbid Anatomy & Histopathology, LUTH, Lagos in the period January 1990 to December 1999 were reviewed. Clinical data on each of the cases was retrieved from the request cards. A minimum of two microscopic sections was examined for each surgically excised tumour in the study. The tumours were classified according to the latest WHO guidelines. The results are presented in the form of graphs, tables and analyzed using simple frequency distribution.
Result: Vascular tumours represented 27.3 % of soft tissue tumours in the period under review. The male to female ratio was 3.0: 1.0. Forty-eight of the tumors are benign in nature (92.2 %) of which the majority are haemangiomas (80.7 %). Intermediate and malignant vascular tumours accounted for 3.9 % each. However, there was no case of Kaposi's sarcoma. Most vascular tumours affected the head and neck region (40.4 %) followed by the trunk and extremities (15.4 % each). No multicentric tumours were found in the present study.
Conclusions: The study has shown that vascular tumours are the commonest soft tissue tumours of childhood in this environment. The histopathologic features of vascular tumours in infants and children in Lagos are similar to those described by earlier workers in Africa, Europe and the United States. However, Kaposi's sarcoma, a common tumour of children in East and Central Africa, is absent in this study as indeed in previous works on paediatric tumours from Jos and Zaria in Nigeria. There is the need for further studies to evaluate the factors responsible for these observed regional differences.