Epidemiology of soft tissue sarcomas in Jos, North Central Nigeria

Soft tissue sarcomas are a complex heterogeneous group of tumours that often cause a diagnostic problem. Special stains are often employed for further differentiation of these tumours. As a group, soft tissue sarcomas are not uncommon as previously believed.

To undertake a ten year retrospective study of soft tissue sarcomas in a Nigerian Teaching Hospital and to also discuss the pathology of the disease.

The study consisted of all records of histologically confirmed cases of soft tissue sarcomas from 1994 2003, seen at JUTH. The slides were retrieved and read separately by two pathologists. Special stain such as Reticulin, PTAH, Oilred O, were used to demonstrate basement membrane, muscle striation and lipids respectively. These aided confirmation of the diagnosis. Information extracted from patients' records included age, site of lesion and sex.

A total number of 266 cases of soft tissue sarcomas were recorded out of 2353 histologically confirmed cancers. These accounted for 11.3% of all cancers. One hundred and eighty three occurred in males and 83 in females, with male, female ratio of 2:1. Kaposi sarcoma (KS), Rhabdomyosarcoma (RMS), Malignant Fibrous Histiocytoma (MFH), and Fibrosarcoma (FS) were the commonest histological subtypes accounting for 69 (25.9%), 63 (23.7%), 56 (21.1%) and 49 (18.4%) respectively; with Rhabdomyosarcoma occurring more in paediatric and adolescent age groups, while the rest subtypes were more prevalent in adults. The commonest sites affected were leg/foot 71 (26.7%), head/neck 68 (25.6%) and thigh 50 (19%).

Soft tissue sarcomas constituted a significant proportion of cancers in our centre and are not uncommon as previously reported in the literature.