Cancer is one of the leading causes of morbidity and mortality worldwide, with approximately 14 million new cases in 2011.The number of new cases is expected to rise by about 70% over the next 2 decades. Globally, nearly 1 in 6 deaths is due to cancer.Approximately 70% of deaths from cancer occur in low- and middle-income countries.
Cancer is a generic term for a large group of diseases that can affect any part of the body. Other terms used are malignant tumours and neoplasms. One defining feature of cancer is the rapid creation of abnormal cells that grow beyond their usual boundaries, and which can then invade adjoining parts of the body and spread to other organs.
Around one third of deaths from cancer are due to the 5 leading behavioural and dietary risks: high body mass index, low fruit and vegetable intake, lack of physical activity, tobacco use, and alcohol use.The economic impact of cancer is significant and is increasing.
In the absence of cancer planning and control interventions, around 70% of the global cancer burden will arise in the developing world. Although the number of new cancer cases in 2012 was nearly twice as high in the United States as in Africa (1.6 million vs. 847,000), the number of deaths was similar (617,200 vs. 591,200). The past, studies have suggested that some sections of the population may have been underrepresented in hospital statistics, particularly older women and young men, both of whom were more likely to return to their rural homes to seek care. However, currently, this underrepresentation is probably rather rare in contemporary urban Africa. Most cancer patients will, eventually, seek medical assistance, although often at an advanced stage of disease. The situation in rural areas may be quite different, but almost all the present-day cancer registries are located in urban centers. From an epidemiological point of view, one must guess at how well the cancer profile from the urban areas reflects that in the country as a whole, given what is known of urban–rural differences in cancer patterns in other areas of the world.
The main problems that need to be addressed in the East Africa region are the shortage of dedicated resources, the extremely low number of cancer registries and pathology departments, the geographic distances involved, the poor case abstraction, and the need for data collection from peripheral hospitals to centralized pathology laboratories. Obviously, these problems cannot be addressed only by international donors, or by single cancer registrars with good will. Government investments are needed to create the backbone on which projects for the development of cancer registries can be built. Almost all the histopathology laboratories in East Africa have no written standard operative procedures (SOPs) covering quality control and quality assurance policies, and no strict measures against biologic risk for technologists and pathologists.
Sources used:
– https://www.afro.who.int/health-topics/cancer
– Eastern Africa/today/data/factsheets/populations.pdf
– https://medcraveonline.com/ICPJL/cancer-registries-and-cancer-genomics-research-in-east-africa-challenges-and-lessons-learned.html
– https://bvgh.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Africas-Emerging-Cancer-Crisis-A-Call-to-Action.pdf
East Africa 