RECTAL CARCINOMA IN A NINE YEAR OLD NIGERIAN MALE CHILD: CASE REPORT

Carcinoma of the colon and rectum are rare in children and under the age of 40 years. A caseof coro-rectal carcinoma in a nine-year-old Nigerian male child is reported. Family history wassignificant in the patient, it revealed that his father died three years earlier because of chronicdiarrhoea and mucoid stool with associated on and off constipation and one of his elder brothersdied eight years ago of colonic cancer at the age of twenty years. Exploratory laparotomy was donefor the patient which revealed fixed rectosigmoid tumour with metastases to the liver, omentumand small intestine and ascites was also found. Hartmann’s procedure with sigmoid colostomy wasperformed and the tumour was resected. Histological report of the biopsy specimen was consistentwith poorly differentiated adeno-carcinoma. To the best of our knowledge, the youngest patientrecorded in the literature is seven years old, which is younger than our patient, but this is still theyoungest in our records

SURGICAL COMPLICATIONS FROM LOCAL HERBAL PRACTITIONERS: REPORT OF FIVE CASES

SUMMARYOver a 12-month period, five patients (out of a total of 72) with serious complications resulting fromuse of herbs by traditional healers were seen at the surgical unit of Olabisi Onabanjo UniversityTeaching Hospital, Sagamu, Nigeria. The age range was one and a half to five years with a meanage of 23.4 ± SD years and a male to female ratio of 3:2. All the cases were misdiagnosed andmismanaged and ended up with various complications. Such as penile amputations, digital necrosis,upper and lower limb gangrene as well a severe sepsis among others. Ignorance, cultural beliefsand attitudes, delusion, poverty and inaccessibility to orthodox medical practice were some of thefactors responsible for the patronage of traditional healers