Spectrum of intracranial tumours in a tertiary health carefacility: Our findings

Introduction: primary brain tumours are uncommon with an annual incidence of 5-10/100000. This study has attempted to analyse thehistological pattern of intracranial tumours seen in our centre. Methods: a retrospective study of cases of intracranial tumours seen wasconducted over a period of 5 years ie from January 2008 to December 2012. All the slides were reviewed. The age, sex, diagnosis using the WHOgrading and the histological subtypes were recorded. Data were analysed using the (SPSS) Software version 17.Results: altogether, 56 cases of intracranial tumours were seen out of a total of 12,610biopsies representing 0.004% .The male to female ratio (M: F) was approximately 1:1.1The mean age of the patients was 36 ± 20.35 (range, 2 to 85). Astrocytomas accounted for 30% (17)while 29% (16) hadMeningioma.Medulloblastoma accounted for 18%.(10).Of the cases of Gliomas, majority(52%) fell under WHO grade II. (38%)of the Meningiomawere of the mixed type while 25% had transitional type.Conclusion: astrocytomas was the commonest brain tumour.These patternscorroboratedmost studies that have been done.Metastasis to the brain was however, not seen in this study

Morphological spectrum and epidemiological profile of ovarian tumours in black West African women at Lagos state university teaching hospital, Ikeja, Nigeria

Background: This study was done to evaluate the histological types, frequency and age distribution of ovarian tumours in Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH), Ikeja, Lagos State. This study also aims to classify ovarian tumours in this centre according to the World Health Organisation (WHO).Methods: A retrospective, descriptive hospital study of all ovarian specimens that were sent to the department of pathology and forensic medicine, LASUTH between 1st January, 2011 and 31st December, 2019 was done. Relevant data composed of the age distributions and histopathological types were extracted from the departmental information system and filed documents. The data was analysed using the IBM-SPSS version 25.0.Results: There were 198 cases of ovarian tumours. The mean age at diagnosis of ovarian tumours was 34.6±15.3 years. Unilateral ovarian tumour was observed in 91.9%% of cases while bilateral disease was seen in 8.1%. Primary ovarian tumours constitute 97.0% of all diagnosed tumours of the ovary. Germ cell tumour was the most frequently diagnosed ovarian tumour; and teratoma was the most common, representing 91.2% of germ cell tumours and 47.0% of all ovarian tumours. Primary ovarian cancer peaked at the 6th decade of life and metastatic ovarian cancer was infrequently seen. Serous carcinoma is the most commonly diagnosed ovarian cancer.Conclusions: Ovarian tumour presents most frequently at the 4th decade of life, and germ cell tumour is the most common

Histopathology of bladder carcinomas: an eight year retrospective study at Lagos state university teaching hospital, Ikeja, Nigeria

Background: This study was undertaken to evaluate the histological types, frequency, age and sex distribution of bladder carcinoma in Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH), Ikeja, Lagos state. This study aims to classify bladder carcinoma in this centre according to the World Health Organisation/ International Society of Urological Pathology.Methods: An eight-year retrospective study of all bladder carcinomas specimens that were sent to the department of Pathology and Forensic Medicine, LASUTH between 1st January, 2011 and 31st December, 2018 was done. Relevant data consisting of the age and sex distributions as well as histopathological types were extracted from the departmental information system and filed documents. The data was analysed using the IBM-SPSS version 25.0.Results: There were 87 cases of bladder tumours, out of which 55 (63.2%) were bladder carcinomas. The mean age at diagnosis of bladder carcinomas was 56.9±13.9 years. Sex distribution has male to female ratio of 1: 1. Urothelial carcinoma predominates as the most common histological type.Conclusions: Bladder carcinoma presents most frequently at the 5th decade of life, with a slight male preponderance

The Kikuchi-Fujimoto Disease in Nigeria: A Case Report and Literature Review

The Kikuchi-Fujimoto is a rare, self-limiting disease, which is characterized by regional lymphadenopathy. It occurs worldwide with a higher prevalence among Asians and women below the age of forty years. We present 41-year-old Nigerian woman who was investigated extensively for unilateral left cervical lymphadenopathy. She was eventually diagnosed as having the Kikuchi-Fujimoto disease and was managed conservatively thereafter. We describe a case report and review of literature for better awareness of the disease amongst medical practitioners and pathologists in Africa

Effectiveness of model-based clustering in analyzing Plasmodium falciparum RNA-seq time-course data

Abstract Background: The genomics and microarray technology played tremendous roles in the amount of biologically useful information on gene expression of thousands of genes to be simultaneously observed. This required various computational methods of analyzing these amounts of data in order to discover information about gene function and regulatory mechanisms. Methods: In this research, we investigated the usefulness of hidden markov models (HMM) as a method of clustering Plasmodium falciparum genes that show similar expression patterns. The Baum-Welch algorithm was used to train the dataset to determine the maximum likelihood estimate of the Model parameters. Cluster validation was conducted by performing a likelihood ratio test. Results: The fitted HMM was able to identify 3 clusters from the dataset and sixteen functional enrichment in the cluster set were found. This method efficiently clustered the genes based on their expression pattern while identifying erythrocyte membrane protein 1 as a prominent and diverse protein in P. falciparum. Conclusion: The ability of HMM to identify 3 clusters with sixteen functional enrichment from the 2000 genes makes this a useful method in functional cluster analysis for P. falciparu

Development of Bioinformatics Infrastructure for Genomics Research in H3Africa

Background: Although pockets of bioinformatics excellence have developed in Africa, generally, large-scale genomic data analysis has been limited by the availability of expertise and infrastructure. H3ABioNet, a pan-African bioinformatics network, was established to build capacity specifically to enable H3Africa (Human Heredity and Health in Africa) researchers to analyze their data in Africa. Since the inception of the H3Africa initiative, H3ABioNet’s role has evolved in response to changing needs from the consortium and the African bioinformatics community. Objectives: H3ABioNet set out to develop core bioinformatics infrastructure and capacity for genomics research in various aspects of data collection, transfer, storage, and analysis. Methods and Results: Various resources have been developed to address genomic data management and analysis needs of H3Africa researchers and other scientific communities on the continent. NetMap was developed and used to build an accurate picture of network performance within Africa and between Africa and the rest of the world, and Globus Online has been rolled out to facilitate data transfer. A participant recruitment database was developed to monitor participant enrollment, and data is being harmonized through the use of ontologies and controlled vocabularies. The standardized metadata will be integrated to provide a search facility for H3Africa data and biospecimens. Because H3Africa projects are generating large-scale genomic data, facilities for analysis and interpretation are critical. H3ABioNet is implementing several data analysis platforms that provide a large range of bioinformatics tools or workflows, such as Galaxy, the Job Management System, and eBiokits. A set of reproducible, portable, and cloud-scalable pipelines to support the multiple H3Africa data types are also being developed and dockerized to enable execution on multiple computing infrastructures. In addition, new tools have been developed for analysis of the uniquely divergent African data and for downstream interpretation of prioritized variants. To provide support for these and other bioinformatics queries, an online bioinformatics helpdesk backed by broad consortium expertise has been established. Further support is provided by means of various modes of bioinformatics training. Conclusions: For the past 4 years, the development of infrastructure support and human capacity through H3ABioNet, have significantly contributed to the establishment of African scientific networks, data analysis facilities, and training programs. Here, we describe the infrastructure and how it has affected genomics and bioinformatics research in Africa

Crushed, uncooked egg in the oropharynx: a café coronary?

Abstract Background Obstruction of the upper respiratory airway can terminate in fatal asphyxia. Autopsy findings in asphyxial deaths as described in literature are not necessarily pathognomonic. A complete autopsy with ancillary studies is necessary to establish the cause, time, and manner of death. Case presentation The authors present a 44-year-old male who was found dead in his car. He had been remanded in prison for drug trafficking 1 year prior to his death. No other history or death scene findings were provided by the police. Autopsy revealed a crushed, uncooked egg in his oropharynx. Postmortem radiology and toxicology were not done due to nonavailability of the required facilities. Death was ascribed to asphyxia due to a crushed, uncooked egg in the oropharynx. The manner of death could not be ascertained because pertinent information regarding the deceased’s medical records, locus report, and other ancillary investigations was not available. Conclusions This report presents an unusual cause of mechanical upper airway obstruction that has never been documented and discusses some of the deficiencies of autopsy practice in resource-limited countries

Interventions to improve liver enzyme screening testing in obese patients aged <18 years in a public hospital, Chicago, IL, 2017–2018

Megan Ward,1 Peter Nguyen,1 Simi Akintorin,2 Rosibell Arcia,1 Kenneth Soyemi1,3 1Department of Pediatrics, Cook County Health, and Hospitals System, The John H. Stroger Jr. Hospital, Chicago, IL, USA; 2Keck School of Medicine, University of Southern California Medical School, Los Angeles, CA, USA; 3Department of Emergency Medicine, Cook County Health, and Hospitals System, The John H. Stroger Jr. Hospital, Chicago, IL, USA Introduction: Our study objective was to determine the health care provider liver enzyme screening testing (LEST) rates in obese pediatric patients at risk for nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), with the goal of improving NAFLD LEST after specific system-wide provider intervention.Methods: We conducted a bi-phased retrospective electronic medical record review of health care practitioner encounters to determine LEST in overweight/obese (body mass index≥25) patients between ages 2 and 18 years in our outpatient clinics. Intervention activities included lectures to staff and residents, fliers distributed to providers, monthly email reminders, and computer stickers placed on all terminals. From both phases, samples of simple random samples were drawn from the selected electronic medical records and reviewed for LEST screening; after intervention from this pool of patients, a random sample was chosen for LEST rate analysis. LEST rates were calculated per 100 patient encounters.Results: We screened 2,979 and 2,634 pre and postintervention pediatric encounters from which we obtained a simple random sample of patients for LEST analysis. Overall of the 264 preintervention patients, 65 (24.4%) patients received LEST translating to 24/100 encounters. Of the 65 who received screening, 53 (81%) were classified as overweight/obese. Screening rate was higher for overweight/obese patients (32/100 encounters), when compared with normal weight patients’ crude OR 3.8 (11/100 encounters; 95% CI: 1.9–7.6, P<0.005). Of the 242 postintervention patients, 70 (28%) received LEST translating to 28/100 encounters; of these, 58 (82%) were classified as overweight/obese with a rate of 42/100 encounters compared with 11/100 encounters for normal weight patients’ crude OR 5.5 (95% CI: 2.8–7.5, P<0.005).Conclusion: Obesity is a significant risk factor for NAFLD; one in four obese pediatric patients had LEST. Additional health care practitioner education and interventions are needed to improve LEST to prevent long-term complications such as liver cirrhosis or failure. Keywords: obesity, NAFLD, ALT, screening, pediatri

Histopathological study of surgical cervical biopsies in Lagos, Nigeria

Introduction: Benign lesions of the cervix such as hyperplasia, endometriosis, cervicitis and endocervical polyps are health concerns for women globally. Meanwhile, Cervical cancer is the fourth most common cancer among women in the world, with developing countries bearing the brunt of the burden in terms of morbidity and mortality. This study examines the histopathological pattern of cervical biopsies in a tertiary health institution in Lagos, Nigeria. Materials and Methods: This was a retrospective study of all cervical biopsies received in a government-owned tertiary health institution and a private pathology laboratory both in Ikeja over an 8-year period. All the slides were retrieved and reviewed while socio-demographic and clinical details were obtained from request and clinical notes. Data analysis was conducted using the Statistical Package for Social Science version 20. Results: A total of 901 biopsies were retrieved, representing 4.8% of the total biopsies conducted. The age range of patients was 19–87 years with a mean age of 49 ± 13.0 years. The benign tumours accounted for 58.8% of the cases, with a benign to malignant ratio of 1.5:1. Squamous cell carcinoma (SCC), endocervical polyps, and cervical intraepithelial neoplasm accounted for 36.1%, 30.9%, and 15.1% of the total cervical biopsies, respectively. The benign tumours were statistically related to the younger age groups (P = 0.00), however, malignant tumours showed no relationship with age group (P = 0.325). Conclusion: SCC and endocervical polyps were the most common malignant and benign cervical biopsies, respectively. The benign tumours were seen more in the younger age group. Early detection of some of these benign conditions may provide an opportunity for appropriate interventions to prevent further complications

Autopsy findings in sickle cell disease patients in Lagos State University Teaching Hospital, Ikeja, Lagos, Nigeria

Sickle cell disease (SCD) is an inherited haemoglobinopathy with a stable prevalence of about 2% in Nigeria. SCD is associated with a high mortality rate particularly in resource-poor countries. This study sought to determine the mean age at death and common causes of sudden death among patients with sickle cell disease in Lagos, Nigeria. A retrospective study was done from 1st January 2005 to 31st December 2015. The age at death, sex, clinical presentations, causes and year of death were retrieved from the clinical notes and post mortem register. Data obtained were analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 21. The mean age of death was 28.26 ± 11.47 years, over 80% (83.6%) of all patients reviewed in this study died before their 40th birthday. The study showed that the most common cause of sudden death was anemia-related (50%) while 21% were due to acute infections, 18.4 % were due to cardiovascular events and 4.6% were due to thromboembolic events. The study demonstrates that 80% of death occurred in patients less than 40 years and the risk of sudden death is highest in the 3rd decade of life.Keywords: sickle cell disease, autopsy, sudden deat