We have studied on endemic diseases mainly in Kenya. This report contains seven research subjects. 1) Geopathology in western Kenya: during the period 1979-1986, 4, 342 cases out of 25, 343 cases of surgical pathology specimens were diagnosed as malignant neoplasm. Incidence of each disease was as follows: uterus cancer (21%), skin cancer (15%), malignant lymphoma (15%), soft tissue tumor (7%), tumor with unknown primary site (5%), esophageal carcinoma (4%), tumor unclassified (3%), eye tumor (3%), breast cancer (3%), liver cancer (3%), and ovarian carcinoma (2%). Kaposi's sarcoma, Burkitt's lymphoma, fibrosarcoma, penile cancer, and retinoblastoma showed a characteristic feature of ethnical and geographical distribution. 2) Kaposi's sarcoma is classified into at least four forms; classical, endemic, epidemic, and posttransplantation forms. Endemic Kaposi's sarcoma in Africa manifested long clinical duration, nodular cutaneous appearance, and granulomatous and fibrosarcomatous histological findings which were quite different from other three forms. 3) Hemangioma of granulation tissue type showing histologically atypical capillary proliferation of the upper respiratory tract of Kenyan patients were studied. 4) Epstein-Barr virus and tumor: comparative pathological study between Burkitt's lymphoma in African children and nasopharyngeal carcinoma of adult patients in southern China is in progress. 5) Seroepidemiology of Hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) revealed that Kenya is one of the most prevalent areas of Hepatitis B Virus in the world. 6) Liver diseases in the tropics: parenchymal regenerative change was prominent in chronic viral hepatitis, while parenchymal necrosis and degeneration of the liver were characteristic in toxemia of pregnancy, yellow fever, and aflatoxicosis. 7) Postmortems in Kenya: more than 80% of autopsy cases in Kenya were non-cancer diseases. On the contrary, 70% of autopsy cases in Japan (Akita Prefecture) were cancer diseases.
These results suggest that environmental factors and human ecology exert and influence upon endemic disease manifestations. (Research Permit, Republic of Kenya: No. OP. 13/001/8c224/12)
