Wilson IB Onuigbo
It is well known that albinos undergo operations when they suffer from sunlight induced cancers. Not so well known is that some of them undergo such operations several times. Does this represent a “recurrent variant”? A histopathology data pool established at a Reference Laboratory serving the Igbo ethnic group in Nigeria was searched for a 30-year period in respect of the number of operations recorded for the albino patients. A total of 133 cases became available. Whereas 90 patients were operated on once, four underwent 4 operations or more, the highest number being 7 times. It is hypothesized that the “recurrent variant” of keloids, which has already been reported in the literature, probably also holds true among Igbo albinos. In addition, whether this is “familial” or not ought to be determined through epidemiologic research worldwide.
