The prevalence of polydactyly in the Southern Ijaws of Bayelsa state , Nigeria

Polydactyly, once regarded as a congenital anomaly, is now regarded as a biological variant following Eurocat classification. The prevalence of polydactyly in many human populations is unknown largely because it was regarded as a congenital anomaly and hence interest was only on birth incidence. The purpose of this study was to determine the prevalence of polydactyly among the Southern Ijaw indigenes of Bayelsa State, Nigeria. One thousand subjects comprising 460 females and 540 males were randomly selected for this study. Subjects were physically screened for presence or absence of polydactyly. Results showed that the population prevalence of polydactyly was 7.5% and shows a higher occurrence in males compared to females. However, gender predilection was not evident at p < 0.05 level of significance. It was concluded that polydactyly, a human morphologic variant, has a high general population prevalence of 90/1000 in the Southern Ijaw indigenes of Bayelsa State, Nigeria. Key words: Morphologic, Variation, Limb-anomalies, Occurrence