Hospital Based Cancer Statistics as an Initial Step towards Establishment of Effective Cancer Intervention in Tanzania

Abstract

There is an increasing public awareness that cancer in terms of increasing incidence rates and low curability become a serious problem in Tanzania. Due to limited human and physical resources in Tanzania, cancer interventions that address high incidences, curability and socio-economic impact must be given top priority. This information is often obtained in Population Based Cancer Registry (PBCR) which is not only lacking in Tanzania but its production requires relatively long period of follow-up and high cost of registration. Since establishment of effective cancer intervention is urgent, the desired information needed to accord this priority has been obtained from Hospital Based Cancer Statistics at Ocean Road Cancer Institute (ORCI). From this study, it was found that interventions of cancer of the cervix, breast, kaposi sarcoma, esophageal and head and neck has to be given high priority. It was also observed that treatment outcome for cervical cancer patients of all stages ranged between 34.2 % and 39.1% in the year 2010 and 2015 respectively. Using incidence, curability and socio-economic indices, the cancer type which require effective intervention are cancer of the cervix, breast and kaposi sarcoma. Implicitly, in the low cure rate of each detected cervical cancer in Tanzania compared to high cure rate reported in developed countries, early detection interventions and dose delivery accuracy should be improved.