Pattern of Cancer in Irrua Specialist Teaching Hospital

Aims: To reveal the pattern and trend of cancer in a predominantly rural population in Nigeria and compare the findings with those of earlier researches across the world.

Study Design: A descriptive retrospective analysis of all cancer cases seen among surgical specimens in Irrua Specialist Teaching Hospital. The cancer cases are classified according to the organ/tissue involved and the data obtained were analysed using SPSS (version 25).

Place and Duration of Study: The Department of Anatomic Pathology, Irrua Specialist Teaching Hospital, Nigeria; between January 2011 and December 2020.

Results: A total of 9,058 histologic samples were reviewed out of which 1,474 (16.27%) were cancer cases. The yearly number of cancer cases increased from 85 in 2011, to 258 over the next 10-year study period. At variance with WHO 2020 GLOBOCAN worldwide estimates, the common cancer types seen in this study (both sexes combined) were prostate cancer, breast cancer, cervical cancer, colorectal cancer and non-melanoma skin cancer, in decreasing frequencies. The peak age of occurrence was the 7th decade while the mean age was 54.21 years, and the gender-specific mean ages for males and females were 59.92 years and 49.44 years respectively. The male to female ratio was 1:1.2 and males are more likely to be diagnosed of cancer approximately 10 years later than their female counterparts.

Conclusion: Many of the findings in this study are similar to those of previous researches across the country. It is our hope that the findings in this study would contribute to national data and be found useful in efforts to build a more inclusive and robust national system of cancer registration.