Histo-epidemiological aspects of gynecological and breast cancers at the University Teaching Hospital of Yaoundé

Abstract

INTRODUCTION: The study was to describe the epidemiological and histopathological features of gynecological malignancies in the city of Yaoundé, Cameroon. METHODS: This was a descriptive cross-sectional study of histologically proven gynecological cancers over a 10-year period (2008-2017) in the Gynecology and Pathological Anatomy Departments of the University Teaching Hospital of Yaoundé. RESULTS: A total of 682 cancers were identified among which, 342 gynecological cancers, for an overall frequency of 50.1% and an annual frequency of 34.2 cases on average. The trend was to increase the number of cancers diagnosed from one year to another. The cervix was the most frequent location with 182 cases (53.2%); followed by breast 96 cases (28.1%); endometrial 33 cases (9.7%) and ovaries 15 cases (4.4%). These patients were on average 51.,13.7 years old, housewives (56.8%), married (60.4%), multiparous (61.3%) and referred (62.6%). Histopathologically, cervical cancer was predominantly squamous cell carcinoma (86.8%), invasive (80.9%) and well differentiated (45.5%). For breast cancers, the majority were ductal carcinomas (78.1%), invasive (92%), and histological grade SBR II (50.6%). The most common histopathological types of endometrial and ovarian cancer were adenocarcinoma (72.2%) and serous cystadenocarcinoma (46.7%), respectively. CONCLUSION: Gynecological cancers are common. Cervical cancer screening is expected to increase to 30 years for cervical cancer and start at age 40 with mammography for breast cancer.

Keywords

• gynecological cancers
• epidemiology
• histopathology
• yaoundé
• cameroon