Clinical and pathologic characteristics of penile cancer: current experience at a tertiary care hospital center in Mexico

Abstract

Background: Squamous cell carcinoma of the penis is considered a rare disease in developed countries, accounting for 0.4-0.6% of the malignant tumors in men, but the figure increases to 10-20% in developing countries. Ninety-five percent of penile cancers correspond to squamous cell carcinoma and the outstanding risk factors are phimosis, smoking, and human papillomavirus infection.
 Objective: To describe the clinical and pathologic characteristics of patients diagnosed with penile cancer.
 Materials and methods: A retrospective, retrolective, and descriptive study was carried out utilizing the physical and electronic case records of patients treated at the Urology and Oncology Service of the Hospital General de México over the 5-year period of January 2015 to January 2020.
 Results: Data on 93 patients were included. Mean age of the patients was 57.87 years (23-86), 55.9% were smokers, and 50% had comorbidities. A total of 65.6% of the patients had a primary school education, 20.4% had a secondary school education, and 7.5% were illiterate. Phimosis was identified in 74.2% and the most frequent penile cancer sites were the glans penis (40.9%), the glans penis-prepuce (33.5%), or the penile body (23.7%). Koilocytosis was present in 17.2%, lymphovascular invasion in 18.3%, and perineural invasion in 19.4%.
 Conclusions: Cases of penile cancer are frequent at our hospital and the disease is one of the 20 principal diagnoses made annually. The majority of cases are ulcerous, moderately differentiated, stage T3, clinical stage N0, squamous cell carcinoma.