Frequency and Pattern of All Cancer Cases at Thika Level Five Hospital in Kiambu County, Kenya

Aims: To determine the frequency and pattern of cancer cases and provide baseline for the establishment of a cancer registry based on calculated incidence rates, prevalence, and morbidity of cancer cases.

Study Design: Descriptive, cross-sectional design was applied.

Place and Duration of Study: Thika Level Five Hospital cancer pain management department, between April 2019 and July 2019.

Methodology: A total of 574 records of cancer patients were examined from the clinical health registers of cancer patients for cancers that occurred between January 2013-December 2018 from the health records department of the cancer pain management department in the hospital. In Thika Level Five Hospital for data abstraction. Variables such as sex, age of patient, date of cancer incidence, primary anatomical sites of cancer origins including the county of patient residence were recorded in defined standardized abstraction forms specific for each noted cancer case. Proportionate cancer frequency, incidence rates and morbidity for every year under investigation was calculated. In each frequency it is absolute value and proportions are in percentages. The quantitative data was entered into Excel spreadsheet and cleaned, and after coding, the data was imported into SPSS version 21 for analysis. Approval was obtained from Mount Kenya University (MKU) Institutional Research Ethics Committee and a license obtained from National Commission of Science, Technology, and Innovation (NACOSTI). Authorization to collect data was obtained from Thika Level Five Hospital.

Results: Data was abstracted from 574 records out of which186 (32.4%) were for male patients while 387 (67.4%) were for female patients. The top ten cancers by site where cervix 146 (24.0%), breast 88 (14.0%), esophagus 88 (13.4%), stomach 49 (10.1%%), prostate 29 (5.1%), liver 26 (4.2%), colorectal 22 (3.8%), skin 20 (3.5%), pancreas17 (3.0%), and gall bladder 10 (1.7%). The proportionate cancer morbidity of both in-patient and out-patient prevalence between January 2013 and December 2018 for all ages was 49.6 per 100,000 population. Patient age ranged from 2-100 years, with a mean age of 57.2 years Kiambu County had most of the cancer patient at 43% followed by Murang’a County (38%) and Machakos County (4%).

Conclusion: Cervical cancer was identified to be the most common cancer generally while esophagus cancer and breast cancers were the major cancer types among females and males, respectively. Also, at the age of 55 - 69 years one is at higher risk of developing cancer as this age group accounts for more than 50% of the reported cases.