Browsing by Author "Butali, Azeez"

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    The dentist-scientist career pathway in Africa: opportunities and obstacles
    (The Korean Society of Medical Education, 2018) Adeola, Henry Ademola; Adefuye, Anthonio; Soyele, Olujide; Butali, Azeez
    The future of evidence-based dentistry in developing Africa heavily depends on a sustainable establishment of a vibrant dentist-scientist workforce. A dentist scientist is saddled with the responsibility of carrying out robust cutting edge research projects that are inspired by clinical experience. Currently, there are no pipelines in place to systematically train such dentists, neither are there programs in place to allow trained African dentists choose such a career pathway. A dentist-scientist is a person who studied oral, dental, maxillofacial (or craniofacial) diseases, prevention, and population sciences (obtaining a medical degrees such as bachelor of dental surgery [BDS] or BChD) alone; or in combination with other advanced degrees such as doctor of dental surgery (DDS)/doctor of philosophy (PhD) or BDS/PhD. This situation has resulted in overdependence of African clinical practice on research findings from technologically advanced Western countries and a decline in clinical research capacity building. The career path of a dentist-scientist should involve research along the spectrum of basic biomedical sciences, translational, clinical and public health sciences. There are several factors responsible for the ultra-low count of dentist-scientist in the heterogeneous African communities such as: poor biomedical research infrastructure; lack of funding; absence of structured dentist scientist career pathways; lack of personnel, inter alia. Hence, this review hopes to discuss the opportunities of setting up a dentist-scientist training pathway in Africa (as obtains in most developed world settings), identify opportunities and prospects of developing an African dentist-scientist workforce, and finally discuss the challenges involved.
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    A multi-centre evaluation of oral cancer in Southern and Western Nigeria: an African oral pathology research consortium initiative
    (African Field Epidemiology Network, 2017) Omitola, Olufemi Gbenga; Soyele, Olujide Oladele; Sigbeku, Opeyemi; Okoh, Dickson; Akinshipo, Abdulwarith Olaitan; Butali, Azeez; Adeola, Henry Ademola
    INTRODUCTION: Oral cancer is a leading cause of cancer deaths among African populations. Lack of standard cancer registries and under-reporting has inaccurately depicted its magnitude in Nigeria. Development of multi-centre collaborative oral pathology networks such as the African Oral Pathology Research Consortium (AOPRC) facilitates skill and expertise exchange and fosters a robust and systematic investigation of oral diseases across Africa. METHODS: in this descriptive cross-sectional study, we have leveraged the auspices of the AOPRC to examine the burden of oral cancer in Nigeria, using a multi-centre approach. Data from 4 major tertiary health institutions in Western and Southern Nigeria was generated using a standardized data extraction format and analysed using the SPSS data analysis software (version 20.0; SPSS Inc. Chicago, IL). RESULTS: Of the 162 cases examined across the 4 centres, we observed that oral squamous cell carcinomas (OSCC) occurred mostly in the 6th and 7th decades of life and maxillary were more frequent than mandibular OSCC lesions. Regional variations were observed both for location, age group and gender distribution. Significant regional differences was found between poorly, moderately and well differentiated OSCC (p value = 0.0071). CONCLUSION: A multi-centre collaborative oral pathology research approach is an effective way to achieve better insight into the patterns and distribution of various oral diseases in men of African descent. The wider outlook for AOPRC is to employ similar approaches to drive intensive oral pathology research targeted at addressing the current morbidity and mortality of various oral diseases across Africa.