Osteogenic Sarcoma of the Jaw Bones over a 21-year Period

Objective: The purpose of this article is to review cases of osteogenic sarcoma of the jawbones diagnosed in our institution during a 21-year period (January 1983 to December 2003). Methods: Records of patients seen at the Lagos University Teaching Hospital between January 1983 and December 2003; with histologic diagnosis of osteogenic sarcoma were analyzed for age and gender of patients, as well as sites and histologic types of tumor. Results: Osteogenic sarcoma of the jaws constituted 0.6% of all the biopsies of oral and jaw lesions seen within the period under study. The mean (SD) age of patients at presentation was 27.2 ± 13.6 years (range, 11-70 years). The mean (SD) age of patients with maxillary lesions, 30.7 ± 15.8 years (range 17-70 years) was higher than that of patients with mandibular lesions, 23.4 ± 10.1 years (range 11-40 years), however no statistical significance difference was found (p= .08) There were 12 male and 5 female patients, a ratio of 2.4:1. Nine (53%) tumors were found in the maxilla and 8 (47%) tumors in the mandible, a ratio of 1.1:1. The most common histologic subtype was chondroblastic types (47%), followed by fibroblastic (35.3%) and osteoblastic types (17.7%). Conclusions: Osteogenic sarcoma of the jaws is rare in patients who presented with tumor and tumor-like lesions of the jaws in our centre in agreement with previous reports from Africa. However, the mean age at presentation of our patients was lower than reported in other parts of the world.