Abstract

SEFEANE, TI  and  MWANGI, PN. Incidence of Dupuytren's disease in Africans: A report of 48 new cases and a literature review. SA orthop. j. [online]. 2017, vol.16, n.2, pp.50-53. ISSN 2309-8309.  http://dx.doi.org/10.17159/2309-8309/2017/v16n2a6.

BACKGROUND: Dupuytren's disease is rare in the black population. It was initially believed it occurred only in males of north European origin and since the initial confirmed report of a male of African descent with the disease only a few other Africans have been reported with the condition in the literature. We wanted to conduct a literature search for all reports of patients of African descent with the disease and to report on our own numbers in our institution. METHODS: We searched our theatre records for all surgeries for Dupuytren's disease from 1997 to 2015 and identified all those that are of pure African descent. A comprehensive literature search in Pub Med, Google Scholar and Clinical Key was then done to identify all reported cases to date. RESULTS: From our records a total of 48 patients were identified. Of them, 43 were male and five were female with an average age of 58.7 years (29 to 75). From the literature, only 462 patients were ever reported with the condition to date. One paper which constituted the majority of these cases was treated with caution as there were questions of reliability about the true ethnicity of the patients, leaving only 50 cases ever reported to date prior to our 48. CONCLUSION: The true incidence of Dupuytren's disease in Africans cannot be accurately determined but it is an extremely rare condition. Population studies should be encouraged so as to come up with an accurate incidence and disease burden.

Keywords : Dupuytren's disease; contracture; black population; Africans.

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