Objective: Sharp injuries constitute important occupational exposure in hospital environment, and perhaps the newly graduated medical and dental students, known as House Officers, in the first twelve months of their practice, are the most vulnerable of all health workers. This study was designed to examine the nature and prevalence of occupational injuries among medical and dental house officers and factors associated with reporting these injuries. Materials and Methods: A self-administered questionnaire was used to obtain information on demography, types of exposure, and barriers to official reporting of occupational injuries. One hundred and forty-four medical and dental house officers in 3 government owned hospitals in Edo State, Nigeria participated in the study, between April and May, 2010. Descriptive and multivariable analyses were performed. Results: The overall response rate was 96%. Out of all participants, 69.4% were male; 82.6% were medical house officers. Prevalence of percutaneous injury was 56.9%; where needlestick injury constituted one-third of all injuries. Mean frequency of injury was 1.86±2.24, with medicals having more injuries (p = 0.043). The ward was the most common location for the injury and 14.8% of exposures occurred as a result of lapse in concentration. At least 77.0% did not formally report their injury and perceived low injury risk was the most common reason given (51.67%). Conclusion: This study shows that a substantial number of House Officers are exposed to occupational injuries and that the majority of them does not formally report these. Safer work environment may be achieved by implementing adequate educational programs tailored specifically to house officers, and policies encouraging exposure reporting should be developed.

Introduction: Angiogenesis, the generation of new vessels, is regulated by several growth factors. The most important of them is vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), which is closely related to tumor progression and prognosis. To my knowledge no study in sub-Saharan Africa has evaluated the level of VEGF following surgery in African patients. This study therefore aims to evaluate the pattern and clinical implication of VEGF expression in benign and malignant neoplasms and determine the effect of surgical intervention on the levels of circulating VEGF. Methods: This case-control study was carried out at the University of Benin Teaching Hospital (UBTH), Benin City, Nigeria, between October 2015 and February 2017. Cases were drawn from among histologically confirmed orofacial tumors, while controls were from consecutive, ambulatory dental patients, matched for age and sex. Calculated sample size for minimum effect was 77 for both cases and controls. Blood samples were taken from cases and controls, pre- and 1-month post-surgery, allowed to clot and serum aliquots were stored at -600 C till analyses. Post-surgery tissue was processed and stained with anti-VEGF antibody for immunohistochemical analysis. Serum VEGF was analyzed using Sandwich ELISA, and mean levels as well as median were measured. Spearman correlation was estimated, t-test measured significance (at p ≤ 0.05), and one-way ANOVA measured between group differences. Results: Following 12% attrition, 81 subjects were retained in the study (55 cases [20 malignant, 35 benign] and 26 controls). The most common malignant neoplasms were head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (35%) and polymorphous low-grade adenocarcinoma (20%), while the benign tumors were mostly unicystic ameloblastoma (42.9%) and solid multicystic ameloblastoma (31.4%). Before surgical treatment, there were significantly different serum levels of VEGF in benign (48.11 ± 25.19 pg/ml) vs. malignant cases (1065.00 ± 412.14 pg/ml), and compared with controls (45.42 ± 29.83 pg/ml), p <0.001. Also, the level of circulating VEGF correlated strongly and positively with tumor tissue expression in malignant cases (r = 0.674, p <0.001). After definitive surgical intervention, there was a significant reduction in the level of serum VEGF in both benign (45.50 ± 24.71 pg/mL) and malignant cases (51.22 ± 16.84 pg/mL), p <0.001. One-way ANOVA revealed no significant differences between cases and controls post-surgery. Conclusion: There were elevated levels of serum VEGF in benign and malignant orofacial neoplasia, which correlate positively with the expression of VEGF in tumor tissue. Surgery caused a significant reduction of circulating VEGF to normal levels irrespective of age, gender, previous medical history, perceived duration of the lesion and lymph node involvement. Citation Format: Aimuamwosa Obarisiagbon, Peter Egbor, Ozoemene Ndubuisi Obuekwe, Osagie Akpata, Akin Ojo, Nosayaba Osazuwa-Peters. Does surgical treatment affect serum levels of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) in orofacial tumors [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2018; 2018 Apr 14-18; Chicago, IL. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2018;78(13 Suppl):Abstract nr 1556.