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Prevalence of Benign and Malignant Lesions in the Head Region: An Observational Study

Objective: The objective of this study was to evaluate the frequency of head benign and malignant lesions with regard to age group, sex, site and type of lesion and clinical variety in a tertiary care hospital in Lahore. Methodology: Basic research design: An observational cross-sectional study, included collection and analysis of histopathological data over the last 4 years i.e. 2016-2019. Test of significance chi-square was done for data analysis in IBM SPSS v17. Clinical setting: Pathology Departments of Sheikh Zayed Hospital (tertiary care hospital). Results: Sample included a total of 952 patient records in this study, with 587 (61.7%) males and 365 (38.3%) females. There were 514 cases of the head region and 438 cases of the neck region. Out of 514 total head region cases, 66 were malignant and 458 were benign. Participants were divided into age groups (1-18, 19-35, 36-50, 51-70, 70+) years respectively. The prevalence of benign cancers in head region was calculated in percentages according to which most patients were of nasal polyp at 26.3%, pleomorphic adenoma were 3.4%, with fibro-epithelial polyp were 9.5%. In the malignant category though Squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) was the most prevalent malignant lesion with highest frequency recorded in tongue region were 4.0%, rest with SCC nose were 0.6%, with SCC soft palate were 2.1%. The results of the chi-square revealed that there was a significant difference found with regards to the prevalence of various benign lesions in the head region between males (X2 = 1003.041, P>.001) and females (X2 = 593.937, P>.001). In addition, the difference among males and females was found statistically significant with regards to the prevalence of different types of malignant tumors in head region (for males, X2 = 238.447, P>.001, for females, X2 = 112.641, P>.001). With regards to the age groups the prevalence of different types of benign cancers was found to be statistically significant at head region (X2 = 140.500, P>.001), however there was a non-significant difference between the age-wise prevalence of different types of malignant cancers of head region (X2 = 44.702, P = .281). Conclusion: A reappraisal of neoplastic lesions of this important anatomical region in this study highlight the wide spectrum of tumors encountered along with its relative frequency. Squamous cell carcinoma constitutes the highest percentage of all the malignancies in the head region. Though head malignancies are a serious concern, good awareness, education, and early diagnosis can reduce their incidence.