Pattern Of Haematological Malignancies In A Tertiary Health Facility In Bauchi State, Northeastern Nigeria

Abstract

Background: Haematological malignancies are clonal disorders of haemopoietic stem cells that are characterized by abnormal proliferation and accumulation of malignant cells in the various body tissues and organs. Objective: The objective of the study was to determine the pattern of haematological malignancies in Bauchi Sate, Northeastern Nigeria. Materials and Methods: This was a retrospective study where records of haematological malignancies diagnosed in the Haematology and Histopathology departments of Abubakar Tafawa Balewa University Teaching Hospital Bauchi from the bone marrow aspiration cytology register as well as the cancer registry respectively from 1st January, 2018 to 31st December, 2020 were collected. Data on socio-demographic characteristics of the patients were also collected. The collated data were analyzed using SPSS Version 20.0. Continuous variables with z-scores within ±2.58 for skewness and kurtosis were considered to be normally distributed. Normally distributed data were reported as means ± standard deviations (SD) while non-normally distributed data were reported as median (interquartile ranges). Categorical data were reported as percentages. Results: Seventy-one (71) cases of haematological malignancies were diagnosed during the period under review in which a total of 601 cancer cases were diagnosed, constituting a frequency of 11.8% of all cancers. The median (IQR) age of the patients diagnosed with haematological malignancies was 18.9(6.2) with a range of 2.5 to 70 years. Acute lymphoblastic leukaemia (ALL) was the commonest while T-cell Non-Hodgkin lymphoma was the least diagnosis during the period under review. The distribution of the histologic subtypes of Hodgkin lymphomas (HL) revealed nodular sclerosis and mixed cellularity as the commonest subtypes with equal frequency (4/7 (42.9%) each) while no cases of lymphocyte rich and lymphocyte depleted were seen. Conclusion: Haematological malignancies are common in our setting and acute lymphoblastic leukaemia is the commonest malignancy in our environment. Physicians are encouraged to be looking for the early symptoms and signs of these malignancies.