Pulmonary Emphysema in Ibadan, Nigeria: A Preliminary Report on a Pathological Study of 114 Unselected Necropsies

A large scale survey of the incidence of pulmonary emphysema in necropsy material in Ibadan is in progress. The present report concerns the findings in the 114 lungs so far analyzed. This series consists of lungs from 59 males and 55 females. Ignoring traces of emphysema and considering both sexes only 7 (6.1%) of the 114 lungs showed emphysema. If trace amounts are included 22 (19.3%) of 114 lungs showed evidence of emphysema. Only 7 (12.7%) of 55 lungs from females showed emphysema and only 1 of the 7 lungs with emphysema showed up to 18.9% involvement. The remaining 6 lungs showed much less than 10% involvement most showing 1% or less. Of 59 lungs of males 15 (25.4%) showed evidence of emphysema. One of these lungs showed 94.9% involvement 3 lungs showed 25-33% involvement 6 lungs showed between 3% and 16% involvement while the remaining 5 lungs showed l% or less involvement. Emphysema is thus more common and more severe in males than in females in Ibadan. Compared with London Edingburgh Cardiff Boston and some other centers emphysema is of low incidence and the lesion is very mild in Ibadan. This is most probably due to the lack of heavy industries and therefore the lack of air pollution in Ibadan.