Background: Breast cancer in African women differs from the Caucasian. Understanding the profile of Nigerian women with breast cancer will help with preventive measures and treatment. This study focused on the clinico-pathological characteristics, with risk factors of breast cancer patients in Nigeria. Methods: Newly diagnosed female patients with breast cancer were assessed over 12 months. Patients were reviewed using a predesigned proforma which focused on socio-demographic information, clinical information, risk factors and tumor biology. Results: A total of 251 women were identified; their mean age was 46 years. More than half (62.5%) are premenopausal at presentation, 37.8% with Eastern Cooperative Oncology Group (ECOG) score of 0 and right side (50.2%) as the most common primary site of disease. Less than half of them (43.0%) are estrogen receptor (ER) positive, 27.9% are progesterone receptor (PR) positive, 43.8% and 47.4% are hormone receptor positive and triple negative, respectively. Most patients presented at the latter stage of the disease, stage III (66.9%) and stage IV (18.3%). Only 15.9% are well differentiated and almost all (92.8%) had invasive ductal histological type. Obesity (66.2%) and physical inactivity (41.9%) are the most common risk factors for the disease. A significant relationship was found between immunohistochemistry status and family history of breast cancer, tumor site, previous breast surgery, previous lump and alcohol intake. Conclusion: Findings from this study showed that Nigerian breast cancer patients differ from their counterparts in the high human development index (H-HDI) countries in terms of the patients and disease characteristics. In view of this, prevention and treatment options should consider this uniqueness to ensure better outcome.

Aims: This study was aimed at investigating the prognostic impact of pretreatment thrombocytosis in epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) patients in Lagos, Nigeria. Methods: This was a retrospective cohort study involving the review of the clinical record of 72 patients with histologically confirmed EOC who were managed at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital, Lagos, Nigeria over a 7-year period from January 2010 to December 2016. Information on the sociodemographic data and platelet counts at diagnosis of EOC were retrieved from the patients’ medical records. Descriptive statistics were then computed for all baseline patients’ characteristics. Survival analyses were carried out using the Kaplan-Meier estimates. Multivariate analysis of these data was performed with the Cox proportional hazards model. Results: This study revealed that the prevalence of pretreatment thrombocytosis was 41.7% among the women with EOC. Fifty-three (73.6%) of the women had the advanced-stage disease (FIGO stage III-IV) while 52 (72.2%) had high-grade disease (II-III). The majority (66.7%) of the women had a serous histological type of EOC while 76.4% had documented recurrence. Pretreatment thrombocytosis was significantly associated with the women’s parity ( P = 0.009), serum carbohydrate antigen 125 levels ( P = 0.018), median progression-free survival (PFS) ( P < 0.001), 3-year median overall survival (OS) ( P < 0.001), type of primary treatment ( P = 0.002), extent of cytoreduction ( P < 0.001), presence of ascites ( P = 0.002), International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics (FIGO) stage ( P = 0.008), and histological type ( P = 0.011). Pretreatment thrombocytosis was negatively associated with PFS (hazard ratio [HR] = 0.25; 95% CI 0.83, 0.75; P = 0.014) and 3-year OS (HR = 0.03; 95% CI 0.03, 0.27; P = 0.002). Conclusions: The study suggests that pretreatment thrombocytosis may be a useful predictor of survivals in EOC patients.

PURPOSE This study was designed to investigate the clinicopathologic predictors of progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS) in patients with epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) following primary treatment in Lagos, Nigeria. MATERIALS AND METHODS Using data from a retrospective cohort of 126 patients who received treatment for EOC between 2010 and 2018, we identified 83 patients with a complete clinical record for subsequent data analysis. Patients' demographics and updated 2-year follow-up status were abstracted from medical records. Kaplan-Meier survival curves were compared using the log-rank test, and Cox proportional hazard models were used for multivariate analysis to identify independent predictors of survivals following treatment in EOC patients. RESULTS The median PFS and OS were 12 and 24 months, respectively. After adjusting for covariates in the multivariate analysis, younger age ≤ 55 years (hazard ratio [HR] = 0.40; 95% CI, 0.22 to 0.74; P = .01) and International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics (FIGO) stage I/II (HR = 0.02; 95% CI, 0.01 to 0.08; P = .01) were independent predictors of improved PFS, whereas being premenopausal (HR = 2.34; 95% CI, 1.16 to 4.75; P = .02) was an independent predictor of reduced OS after 2-year follow-up. CONCLUSION PFS could be predicted by the age and FIGO stage of the disease, whereas menopausal status was predictive of OS in patients with EOC. This knowledge should form the basis for counseling patients with ovarian cancer during their primary treatment and lend support to the importance of aggressive follow-up and monitoring for the older, premenopausal patients and those with an advanced stage of epithelial ovarian cancer. However, robust longitudinal research should be carried out to provide additional reliable insight to this information.

Introduction Trace elements although present in minute quantities in human blood, they play a vital role in many biochemical enzymatic reactions and have been examined critically as a potential key factor in various human diseases including cancers. This study was aimed to determine the association between serum levels of trace elements and invasive cancer of the cervix. Methods This was an analytical cross-sectional study carried out among women seen at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH). Fifty histologically diagnosed patients with squamous cells carcinoma of the cervix, who had not had any treatment and 100 cancer-free volunteers were recruited. A structured interviewer-administered questionnaire was used to collect relevant data following which venous blood sample was obtained from each participant. Serum zinc, copper and selenium concentrations were then measured. The associations of serum trace elements and invasive cervical cancer were tested using the independent sample t-test. All significances were reported at P<0.05. Results There were significantly low serum levels of zinc and selenium in cervical cancer patients with no significant difference seen in the serum level of copper among cervical cancer patients compared to their cancer-free control counterparts. Conclusion These alterations in trace elements levels may be important in the pathogenesis of cervical cancers; however, future robust prospective studies are needed to determine if routine provision of these supplements will result in improved cervical cancer treatment outcomes in Nigerian women.

Background: Categorization of endometrial carcinomas as type I and II provides useful insights into their different risk factors, pathogenesis and biologic behaviours.Aim: To determine the immunohistochemical classifications of endometrial carcinomas in Nigerian women.Design: A retrospective review of histopathologic slides of cases of endometrial carcinomas seen at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH) over a 5-year period. The slides were reviewed, and the diagnoses made according to the WHO nomenclature. The classification of endometrial carcinomas into Type I and II was made by immunohistochemistry using antibodies to ER, PR, p53 and Ki-67.Results: Eight cases of endometrial adenocarcinoma were reported accounting for 53.3% of all endometrial malignancies. Of these, only 1 case showed the classic type I immunophenotype while type II staining pattern was seen in 4 cases. The remaining 3 cases had equivocal immunophenotypes: one was p53+ but showed ER+, PR+ and high Ki-67 index; the second was p53-, ER+, PR+ but had a high Ki-67 expression; while the last was p53-, but ER-, PR- and had high Ki-67 expression.Conclusion: Endometrial carcinomas in Nigerian women are more likely to be type II carcinomas. A reasonable proportion of the cases were equivocal thus requiring further categorization with molecular studies.Keywords: Endometrial carcinomas, immunohistochemistry, LUTH, Nigerian.