Cervical lymphadenopathy of Togolese children in a tropical context: clinicopathological study

Abstract

Our study describes the epidemiology and aetiology of cervical lymphadenopathy in children diagnosed between 2003 and 2017 at the pathology laboratory of Lomé, Togo. A total of 221 cases were collected. The average age of diagnosis of the study population was 9.8 ± 0.3 years and consisted of 118 (53.4%) boys. HIV was confirmed by indirect ELISA test in 69 (31.2%) cases. The cohort consisted of infections (n = 128, 57.9%), tumours (n = 85, 38.5%) and others (n = 8, 1.6%). The main infectious aetiology was tuberculosis (n = 84). Tumour aetiology consisted of 79 primary malignancies and three metastatic cases. Primary tumours consisted predominantly of lymphoma (n = 74), with Burkitt's lymphoma (n = 44) being the most common. Tuberculosis on a background of HIV infection remains the dominant cause of cervical lymphadenopathy in the tropical region of Togo.