Prevalence and outcomes of cancers in Ekiti State, southwest Nigeria.

e12553 Background: There is an increase in the prevalence of cancer in Nigeria with a change in disease pattern from predominantly infectious to one with both communicable and non-communicable diseases. This study was carried out to determine the prevalence and outcomes of cancers in Ekiti State, Nigeria. Methods: This was a review of the data on patients diagnosed with cancers in Ekiti State as recorded in the database of the Cancer Registry of the Federal Medical Centre, Ido Ekiti between 2007 and 2012. The data was obtained from the cancer registry of the hospital and analysed with SPSS version 15 using descriptive statistics. Results: There were 612 diagnosed cancer patients on record in the cancer registry within the five-year period under review. Most (67.6%) were females, 97.1% belonged to the Yoruba ethnic group, 93.5% were Christians, and 86.6% were married while 13.2% were single and 0.2% were separated. The site most commonly affected was the breast (14.6%) followed by the prostate gland (14.1%), cervix (6.9%), ovary (6.8%), uterus (3.1%) and the stomach (1%). Also, the commonest morphological type of cancer seen was adenocarcinoma (8.5%). The highest levels of education were tertiary, secondary and primary education for 47.4%, 30.2% and 15.2% of the patients respectively while 7.2% had no formal education. Of all the patients seen, 85.3% were symptomatic and 14.7% were not while 79.7% were alive, 2.1% dead and the outcome for 7.6% of the patients was unknown at the time of this survey. Conclusions: The prevalence of cancer is increasing with many of the patients not being able to afford the drugs for treatment. More needs to be done by all stakeholders to encourage early screening and diagnostic measures, reduce exposure to risk factors for cancers and subsidize or waive treatment costs for patients.