A review of 775 normally pigmented Africans and 18 African albinos with 
malignant skin tumours showed that squamous cell carcinoma was the most common 
tumour type, in contrast to Caucasians, in whom basal cell carcinoma is most 
frequent. In African albinos squamous cell carcinoma of the head and neck region 
was most frequent. However, the proportion of basal cell carcinomas was low also 
among albinos but higher than among normally pigmented patients. In contrast to 
the normally pigmented patients, there were no squamous cell carcinomas on the 
limbs in albino patients. We suggest that this difference was due to 
environmental factors, such as chronic leg ulcers, which might have been less 
influential in the albinos, who seldom lived more than 30 years. No cases of 
cutaneous melanoma or Kaposi sarcoma were found in the albino group.