Paediatric head and neck malignancies in Ibadan, Nigeria

Abstract

Summary Studies on pediatric head and neck cancer are limited in the medical literature. Most studies have been restricted to specific histological types such as rhabdomyosarcoma, osteogenic sarcoma or Burkett’s lymphoma. This study describes the relative frequency of cancers seen in the head and neck region of children below 16 years of age at the University College Hospital, Ibadan, Nigeria. A total of 281 cases of pediatric head and neck tumors were diagnosed within the study period, out of which 84 cases were malignant. Fifty-four of these cases were males while 30 were females, giving a male to female ratio of 1.8:1. The age range for these cases was 3 days to 15 years with a mean age of 9.03±4.63 years. The most frequently diagnosed tumors were hematopoietic malignancies, accounting for 47.6% of cases, followed by sarcomas (27.4%) and carcinomas (21.4%). Burkett’s lymphoma constituted 28.6%, followed by rhabdomyosarcoma accounting for 17.9% of cases. Malignant neoplasms of the head and neck region are rare in the pediatric age group. The pattern of these neoplasms also differs from that in the adult population. However, malignant head and neck neoplasms in the pediatric age group also showed the male preponderance characteristic of head and neck malignancies in the adult population.