A case of haemoperitoneum following minor trauma in a patient with Fitz‐Hugh Curtis syndrome is presented. This is a rare complication of a condition which is common in Papua New Guinea and many other communities. Laparoscopy is the key to diagnosis of this syndrome which is often overlooked or misdiagnosed.
The Melanesians of the North Solomons arc exposed to intense equatorial sunlight and yet have a very low incidence of skin cancer. lhis study reveals no proven cases of basal cell carcinoma in these people, and demonstrates the rarity of squamous cell carcinoma and melanoma arising in normal pigmented skin. Most, if not all squamous cell carcinomas, arise in skin damaged by tropical ulceration, burns or osteomyelitis. Melanoma arises from the unpigmented skin of the sole of the foot. North Solomon Islanders are very deeply pigmented. Presumably, dense cutaneous melanin in normal undamaged skin provides the highly effective protection against solar carcinogenesis which these people enjoy. Chronic or recurrent skin ulceration with subsequent repair, scarring and loss of pigment is the precursor to almost all non‐melanoma skin cancer in these people. Most of these cancers could be prevented by split thickness skin grafting of chronic ulcers. and protection of ulcerated, depigmented and scarred skin from solar radiation.
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