Resume |
Introduction: Benin Republic, a very low-income sub-
Saharan African developing country, has a severely
resource-constrained health system. There is hardly any
data available on the pattern of pituitary tumour in this
country
Methods: A single surgeon, hospital-based retrospective
analysis of the pattern, presentation and clinical /
surgical course of a prospective cohort of pituitary
tumours seen over a 5-year period is presented
Results: There were 38 cases, 20 (52.6%) females;
27% of all brain tumours seen. They were
macroadenomas in 97. 4%, and greater than 4cm in
63.2%. They occurred mainly (86.8%) in people aged
15 to 59 years. Delayed neurosurgical presentation,
mean 5.16years (range 1-23years) was the rule in
94.7%%; and, visual and endocrinological dysfunction
the two most prominent symptomatology. Due to severe
logistic constraints, neuroimaging evaluation was
possible with cranial CT only in about 90% of the cases.
Also only 9 cases (23.7%) did eventually receive the
planned neurosurgical operative treatment, in 5 cases
of which even this surgical treatment was only facilitated
by some foreign neurosurgical missions.
Conclusions: Pituitary adenomas represent a sizeable
proportion of brain tumours in Benin Republic. National
health care resources in this low income African country
for their optimal clinical / radiological evaluation, and
surgical treatment, are grossly inadequate; indeed, almostnon-existent. |