Patterns of Head and Neck Cancers as Seen at the Cancer Diseases Hospital in Lusaka, Zambia

Abstract

Background: Head and neck cancers are a growing burden of cancer throughout the world with a high morbidity and mortality. These tumours pose a serious public health problem since the majority of these patients present at an advanced stage of the disease.In Zambia, paucity of baseline data makes it difficult to know the pattern and magnitude of the burden of head and neck cancers. Objective: To determine the pattern of head and neck cancers as seen at the Cancer Diseases Hospitalin Lusaka, Zambia. Study Design: Hospital-based descriptive cross-sectional study Methodology: Ninety eight patients with histologically confirmed Head and Neck cancers (HNC) who met the inclusion criteria were included in this study.A questionnaire was used fordata collection. This study was carried out over a period of 6 weeks from September to October 2020. Data management and analysis: Data collected was analyzed using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) program version 21. Further analysis was done with Pearson chi squared test to correlate different variables with P< 0.05 being significant. Results: There were 98 patients in this study, 53 (54.08%) females and45 (45.92%) males. The mean age of the patients was 47±13 years with more than 50% of the patients presenting in the 4th and 5th decade. Geographically, the rural areas of Zambia 56(57.1%) accounted for most of the patients with Lusaka Province having 23(23.5%) followed by Northern Province with 21(21.4%). The most common tumour site of the HNC observed was the larynx 25(25.5%) followed by the nasopharynx 18 (18.4%). The most common histology was squamous cell carcinoma 85(86.7%) and the majority of the patientspresented with late-stage disease, stage III (24.5%) and stage IV (51%). P value was > 0.05 for correlation of tumour site and various demographic variables. Conclusion: HNC patients presented to the CDH from all the provinces of the country of Zambia with more than 2/3 of the patient load coming from Lusaka, Northern and Muchinga provinces. Majority of the patients presented with late-stage disease and squamous cell carcinoma was the most common histology and therefore public campaigns need to be done to raise awareness of HNC.