The corresponding author presented a historical case of lipoma of the breast in 1846. Here, recent cases of it are being drawn attention to from several parts of the world including Nigeria. Thereafter, our joint works will be presented as regards the Ibo ethnic group, which is domiciled in the South Eastern Region of this developing country.

Keywords: Breast, Lipoma, History, Epidemiology

INTRODUCTION

The corresponding author previously reported on a massive lipoma of the breast that was operated on in 1846 by two eponymous giants [1]. Recent examples are here traced to several countries such as Australia [2], Brazil [3,4], China [5], India [6,7], Mexico [8], Taiwan [9] and USA [10]. Our home country, Nigeria, has also featured [11]. Therefore, we present here as many as 4 cases from among our Ethnic Group, the Ibos [12]. These cases were easily obtained from a Regional Pathology Laboratory in keeping with the optimistic view of the Birmingham (UK) group to the effect that the establishment of such a histopathology data pool facilitates epidemiological analysis [13].

RESULTS

These are facilitated by tabulation in Table 1.

DISCUSSION

It is curious that all were left sided. As for the worldwide series, one case was not categorized, whereas most were right sided. Can this be speculated on?

As for the ages, the local range was from 21 years to 50 years with mean of 33 years, while the previously reported Nigerian case was a 30 years old [11]. As can be concluded with reference to the world pattern, it ranged from 28 years to 66 years with a mean of 56 years. Clearly, younger elements are involved among our own people.

A point of interest comes from the further classification of the world cases. They include the “spindle” cell type in Australia [2] and the “chondroid” type in India (6). Curiously, the name “Giant” is mostly carried by the growths reported from Brazil [3,5], China [5], India [6,7], Mexico [8] and USA [10]. Since the Brazilians defined “a giant breast lipoma is characterized by a lesion of at least 5 cm in one dimension” [3], most of the local growths qualify as such.

Distinguished is the Taiwan growth [9]. There, developed within it was an adenoid cystic carcinoma. This led to the description of such having “never” been reported in the literature.

Incidentally, a Denmark group did study up to 108 women [14]. As they concluded, “Our proposal for management is for any clinical diagnosis of lipoma to be continued by either FNAC revealing fat cells or a core biopsy consistent with a lipoma.” In our cases, full biopsy was carried out satisfactorily.

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12.    Basden GT (1966) Among the Ibos of Nigeria. London: Frank Cass.

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