Histopathologic patterns of intracranial neoplasms at Lagos University Teaching Hospital, Nigeria. A ten-year hospital-based retrospective study

BACKGROUND: The most common intracranial neoplasm worldwide is meningioma, followed by gliomas, and then pituitary adenomas. There are geographical differences in the pattern of occurrence of intracranial neoplasms. The purpose of this study is to establish the pattern of occurrence of different histological types of intracranial neoplasms with their age and sex distributions in our environment – Lagos, Nigeria. The histological patterns, age, and gender distributions of all the intracranial neoplasms diagnosed within the study period at the Department of Anatomic and Molecular Pathology, LUTH, Lagos, Nigeria were noted and analysed with SPSS version 23. RESULT: There were 296 patients (165 females, 131 males; mean age of 37.0 years) diagnosed with an intracranial neoplasm within the study period. The most frequently diagnosed intracranial neoplasm was meningioma (105 cases; 35%, median age of 42 years, male to female ratio of 1:2.2), followed by pituitary adenoma (78 cases; 26%, median age of 47 years, male to female ratio of 1.3:1), and then gliomas (71 cases; 24%, median age of 28, male to female ratio of 1:1.39). CONCLUSION: The result of the study shows pituitary adenoma to be more common than gliomas, unlike what is seen in Caucasians where the reverse is the case.