A retrospective analysis of cancers in a rural tertiary care centre

Abstract

Background: In the last couple of decades, cancer incidence has been raising heavily, probably due to our changing lifestyle, habits, and increased life expectancy. The situation is so alarming that every fourth person is having a lifetime risk of cancer.Methods: The study was conducted as a retrospective study among the various cancer patients admitted in our tertiary care centre for a period of 10 years from 2011 to 2020. The data and the case sheets from the hospital records were obtained from the MRD department. The case sheets were reviewed by the investigators on the variables viz age, gender, diagnosis, cancer site, investigations and treatment aspects. The data were entered in the MS excel sheet and analyzed using Statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) software version 21. The data were expressed in terms of frequencies and percentages.Results: Total cases reported were 121 of which in the year 2014 and 2015, the cancer cases reported were 32% and 26% respectively. Then again there was a peak in 2018 and 2019 with 8% and 31% with one case each in the year 2017 and 2020. High prevalence is seen with Breast cancer, which showed 60% followed by carcinoma stomach which is 18% and carcinoma rectum which is 9%. The cancers showed low prevalence, which is 1% include carcinoma prostate, carcinoma larynx, gastro intestinal stromal tumor and retro peritoneal lipo sarcoma.Conclusions: Our study revealed that the cancer cases are high and it showed increasing trend which suggests that the population based cancer registries to be made at all levels of health care to identify the time trends so that prevention measures can be implemented at the community level.