[Sweat gland tumors in Niger. Anatomopathology]

The authors report 15 cases of sweat gland tumour observed over 2 years in Niger where their pathology was never studied. These tumours accounted for 0.38 p. 100 of all examinations performed during the same period at the pathological laboratory of the University of Niamey. They ranked sixth among the diagnoses of skin pathology. Only routine histological techniques were used. The diagnoses obtained could be divided into 5 groups. Eight women presented with partly solid cystic tumours located on the legs in 5 cases; their structure was typical of nodular hidradenoma. Two male patients had cyst-pitted tumours the superficial portion of which showed a structure of papillary eccrine adenoma, while the deep portion contained a multitude of cysts with atrophic walls; the authors consider this type of tumour as a variant of papillary eccrine adenoma. One patient had a syringocystadenoma which also included a large cyst. Finally, one patient presented with a chondroid syringoma in the axillary region, and 3 patients had histologically aggressive carcinomas located on the sole, forehead and axillary region respectively. Clinical and paraclinical investigations failed to detect any deep malignancy in these three patients, and their tumours were regarded as compatible with sweat gland carcinomas. In this series, two lesions were unusually numerous: carcinomas and nodular hydradenomas. The first named probably are a consequence of the socio-economic conditions prevailing in the population of Niger: poverty prevents patients from consulting for diseases which produce no symptoms, which artificially increases the apparent incidence of aggressive lesions. As for nodular hydradenomas, they are large owing to the presence of cysts.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)