Ameloblastoma of the jaws in children: an evaluation of cases seen in a tertiary hospital in South-Eastern Nigeria.

BACKGROUND: Ameloblastoma is one of the most common benign odontogenic tumours in Nigeria. It is considered uncommon in children. MATERIALS AND METHODS: This is a retrospective study of pediatric patients with histopathological diagnosis of ameloblastoma seen over seven years at the Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery Department of the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital, Enugu, Nigeria. Relevant information was retrieved from patients' records and data obtained were analysed using SPSS version 23, the chi-square test was used to compare qualitative variables, a p-value of <0.05 was considered as significant. RESULTS: One hundred and thirty-six cases of ameloblastoma in all age groups were seen within the period. Thirty of the cases met the requirement. The mean age of the patients was 14.4 STD 2.03 (range from 10-17) years. Fourteen (46.7%) patients were male while 16 (53.3%) were female giving a ratio of 1:1.1. The duration of the lesion ranged from 3 months to 72 months (mean 15.07 months). Histologically, the follicular type (n=20, 66.7%) constitute the majority, while the clinical types were solid-multicystic (n=18, 60%) and unicystic (n=12, 40%). Enucleation was the treatment of choice in most (n=18, (60%)) of the patients. CONCLUSION: Ameloblastoma is relatively uncommon in children, especially those less than ten years of age. The solid-multicystic variety was the predominant type in the children studied. Most patients presented long after the onset of the tumour and enucleation with mechanical curettage produced satisfactory results in these patients. FUNDING: None declared.

Pain research in Africa: a ten-year bibliometric survey.

PURPOSE: Over the years, a trend for very low numbers of scientific publications from Africa has emerged. There has been no evaluation of pain research publications from this region. This study was conducted to determine the African pain research spectrum over the last 10 years, to identify trends in the number of publications from different countries, to identify currently underexplored areas of pain research, and to stimulate renewed interest in quality pain research in Nigeria and Africa. METHODS: The English- and non-English-language medical literature on pain from July 2002 to May 2012 was studied using Medline, the Ovid database, and by performing hand searches of relevant references using Google. Publications on pain by Africans and/or non-Africans conducted in Africa on Africans living in Africa within the study period were included. The total number of articles per country, publication types, and impact factors of the respective journals were tabulated to determine the quantity and quality of research in this field. RESULTS: Two hundred twenty-eight (228) articles from 25 African countries that were published in 129 different journals were identified. The majority were epidemiological studies (43.9 %), experimental studies (20.2 %), randomized controlled trials (2.2 %), and systematic reviews (1.8 %). Nigeria, South Africa, and Uganda topped the list of the most-published articles, with 76 (33.3 %), 71 (31.1 %), and 12 (5.3 %), respectively. The total number of journals with impact factors was 81, of which 29 were high-impact-factor journals. CONCLUSION: Pain research publications from Africa should be encouraged. Given the underexplored frontiers of pain research, there is a need to engage in rigorous research in this field to enhance the contribution of the African continent ("the African Voice") to worldwide advances in this respect.