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Review
. 2023 Mar 14:44:128.
doi: 10.11604/pamj.2023.44.128.32907. eCollection 2023.

Oesophageal cancer cases recorded in the Zambia National Cancer Registry: a cross-sectional study

Samson Shumba  1 , Patrick Musonda  1 , Dorothy Lombe  2 , Gershom Chongwe  1   3 , Violet Kayamba  4
Affiliations
Review

Oesophageal cancer cases recorded in the Zambia National Cancer Registry: a cross-sectional study

Samson Shumba et al. Pan Afr Med J. .

Abstract

Introduction: the aim of this study was to determine what proportion of patients with confirmed esophageal cancer at the largest hospital in the country were recorded in the Zambia National Cancer Registry (ZNCR).

Methods: we reviewed esophageal cancer records at the University Teaching Hospital (UTH) and ZNCR, between 2015 and 2017. Using Stata version 15, data were summarised and the Kruskal-Wallis was used to compute comparisons, Kaplan-Meier curves for survival estimates and Cox regression for associated factors.

Results: included in the final analysis were records for 222 patients with confirmed esophageal cancer and of these 51/222 (41%) were appearing in the ZNCR. The mean age of the patients was 56.2 years (SD, 13.0) and only 2/222 (1%) were confirmed alive at the time of data analysis. The median time from endoscopic diagnosis to histological confirmation was 12.5 days (IQR 7.5 - 21.5) and arrival at the Cancer Diseases Hospital (CDH) for treatment was 20 days (IQR 10 - 34). The overall median survival time in the study was 259 days (CI 95%; 151 - 501). Age, sex, time to diagnosis, histological classification and grade of tumour did not show any evidence of predicting survival in both the univariate and multivariable cox regression model (p>0.05).

Conclusion: a significant proportion of esophageal cancer cases seen at UTH were not included in the national registry suggesting that official figures for the prevalence of esophageal cancer in Zambia are underestimated. There is an urgent need to improve the collection of data on esophageal cancer in Zambia.

Keywords: Esophageal; cancer; registry; survival.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
records that were retrieved and information gathered and included in this study
Figure 2
Figure 2
Kaplan-Meier curves, A) survival in days of oesophageal cancer patients; B) survival in days stratified by histological type
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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