Survival and its determinants of Kaposi sarcoma in Tanzania: Retrospective study.

Abstract

e20607 Background: Kaposi Sarcoma is the most common sarcoma and second most prevalent cancer seen in Tanzania. Its affect all age groups and strongly associated with AIDS. Little is known about disease/patients characteristics and survivorship in our settings, therefore this study expected to determine patients survival and its associated factors in Tanzania. Methods: Retrospective descriptive study using structured questionnaires. Patients with Kaposi Sarcoma diagnosed and treated at Ocean Road Cancer Institute, the only cancer care center in Tanzania were followed-up retrospectively using their hospital records and mobile phone communication system, with 199 patients included in the study. Descriptive, Bi-variate Analysis, Ordinal Regression, Life Tables and Kaplan Meier survival analysis as well as SPSS 16.0 and Log rants validity test were used during data analysis. Results: Mean age at KS diagnosis was 40 ± 12.012 yrs, with male (42.60 ± 12.6 yrs) population older than female ( 35.1 ± 9.7 yrs) . Patients waited 30 ± 120 days after diagnosis before start of treatment. Male : Female ratio was 1.6:1, with radiotherapy (82%) found to be most preferred modality of treatment. Skin (87.3%) was most primary organ affected followed by oral cavity (12.2%). Median and average survival of KS patients were 8 ± 0.613 months and 15.863 ± 1.407 months respectively. Primary organ affected and patient residence found significantly to influence survival while age, sex, treatment modality, hemoglobin level, time taken waiting for treatments found to be insignificant survival predictors. Serum white cell and platelets counts have not shown to influence survival with HIV found to affect 90% of Kaposi Sarcoma patients. Conclusions: Social demographic features, overall and median survival of patients with Kaposi Sarcoma in Tanzania, is closely related to other countries with similar settings but the latter two were significantly low compared to developed countries; This might be caused by differences in disease profile, late presentation, poor diagnostic and treatment resources seen in Tanzania compared with other settings.