Ameloblastoma of the jaws in Ethiopia

Abstract

Abstract: The incidence of jaw tumours, including ameloblastoma, has been reported to be high in Africa. To determine the relative frequency of ameloblastoma in Ethiopia, its distribution by age, sex, site of growth, and histologic subtypes, a retrospective descriptive study was conducted for the period of November 1967 to December 1997 in the Department of Pathology of a referral hospital, Faculty of Medicine, Addis Ababa University. Based on histopathologic surgical biopsy results, there were 4o male and 24 female patients; the youngest was an eight-year-old boy and the oldest a seventyoneyear-old woman and the mean age was 30.5 years. Of the 64 histologically proven cases of ameloblastoma, 50 were localized to the mandible and 13 involved the maxilla. A twenty-seven-year-old woman had ameloblastoma occurring in both the mandible and the maxilla. A fifty-three-year-old woman, originally diagnosed as having basal-cell-carcinoma of the gingiva, was considered to have peripheral ameloblastoma. Follicular, plexiform, acanthomatous, angiomatoid, and mixed histologic patterns were seen in this material. Complex histologic subtypes and malignant ameloblastoma were not observed in this series. The average occurrence of ameloblastoma in this material was 2.1 per year. Various prognostic factors related to ameloblastoma were reviewed from the medical literature. There is need for the establishment of a National Cancer Registry to determine the magnitude of ameloblastoma and other neoplasms in Ethiopia. [Ethiop. J. Health Dev. 1999;13(2):163-167]