Descriptive epidemiology of breast and gynecological cancers among patients attending Saint Paul's Hospital Millennium Medical College, Ethiopia

Introduction Cancer is a leading cause of death in both more and less economically developed countries; the burden is expected to grow in less developed countries, such as Ethiopia. Lack of adequate information is one of the major problems preventing the design of cancer control strategies in Ethiopia. Objective To characterize gynecological and breast cancers among clients attending Gynecologic clinic of Saint Paul Hospital Millennium Medical college over 5 year period. Methods We retrospectively reviewed characteristics of 2,002 female cancer patients who visited the Oncology unit of Saint Paul's Hospital Millennium Medical College from 2014-2018. We estimated the proportion, pattern and trend of common types of gynecologic cancers as well as breast cancer. The ten years incidence projection was also computed. Result From the 2,002 malignancies, cervical (46.7%) was the most frequent cancer followed by breast (29.3%) and ovarian cancers (13%). The majority of breast cancers were observed among younger patients whereas cervical cancer was predominantly observed among older women. An overall increment in number of breast and gynecologic cancer was observed over the five years period. Conclusion In this descriptive study, we found that breast and gynecologic cancers are important public health problems among women in Addis Ababa, and that the number of patients seeking care for these cancers is increasing. Additional studies are needed to identify risk factors for these cancers, particularly among younger women, to characterize the trends over time and to project the scope of the cancer problem expected in the future to inform cancer control programs. Increasing public awareness on the possible risk factors and screening is mandatory in addition to resource allocation for further studies and targeted intervention.