Gynaecological malignancies at a tertiary care centre in Mozambique

Objective: To determine the frequency of gynaecological cancers over an 18-year-period in Mozambique a country located in South Eastern sub-Saharan Africa, an area in which comprehensive statistics on cancer are limited. Materials and Methods: Retrospective review of the pathological records of gynaecological cancers at the Maputo Central Hospital from January 1991 to December 2008. Results: 3,726 gynaecological cancers were reported. Malignant neoplasms of the uterine cervix (64.0% of all tumours) were the most frequent cancers, followed by breast (23.2%), vulvar-vaginal (4.1%), ovarian cancers (3.8%), cancers of the uterine corpus (3.3%), and gestational choriocarcinoma (1.7%). Tumours of the uterine cervix, vulva/vagina, uterine corpus, and ovary increased in number three times, whereas breast cancers increased five times during the study period. Conclusions: Malignant tumours related to human papillomavirus (HPV) accounted for over two-thirds of all malignancies. Screening for cervical cancer and vaccination against HPV should be a health priority in sub-Saharan Africa.