Squamous Cell Carcinoma of the Conjunctiva

Squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) of the conjunctiva is an important disease with world-wide distribution. The present search revealed cases in alphabetical order in Australia [1], Chile [2], Germany [3], India [4,5], Japan [6], Kenya [7], Mexico [8], and USA [9]. Collectively, they provide data for comparison with the local data.

A Birmingham (UK) group hypothesized that the establishment of a histopathology data pool enhances epidemiological analysis [10]. Now, for the Igbo ethnic group in Nigeria [11], such a pool became available for research since 1970 when the author became the pioneer pathologist. Moreover, since I kept a personal copy of all the materials, their analysis became easy. Indeed, the tabular form made matters even easier.

Result is discussed in Table 1.

One salient point came from Kenya authors [7]. In their view, concerning ocular surface squamous neoplasia (OSSN), “In equatorial Africa, OSSN affects younger adults and proportionally more women than in other parts of the world.” As Table 1 shows, this is not true of Nigeria. In fact, in Mexico [8], the mean age of the patients was (60.4) range 12 to 99 years, 55% being male. In this context, the above Nigerian trend was from 29 years to 100 years (mean 46 years), 61% being male. The question of association with HIV-infection was raised in Kenya [12]. None of the present cohort was reported to be involved. Similarly, there was the report of orbital exenteration in Australia [1] Chile [2], and Germany [3]. None of the present cases was treated like that. Apparently, what transpired necessarily was “wide local excision” as in USA [9].

Table 1:Epidemiological data on squamous cell carcinoma of the conjunctiva.

In conclusion, Japanese authors treated a 94-year-old woman [6]. Their report ended thus: “Although it is extremely rare that SCC of the conjunctiva is the initial finding in a patient with systemic cancer, careful systemic examination to find other cancers should be made.” Indeed, conjunctival SCC itself is ripe far worldwide research.

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