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Cancer incidence in Blantyre, Malawi 1994–1998
Author(s) -
Banda L. T.,
Parkin D. M.,
Dzamalala C. P.,
Liomba N. G.
Publication year - 2001
Publication title -
tropical medicine and international health
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.056
H-Index - 114
eISSN - 1365-3156
pISSN - 1360-2276
DOI - 10.1046/j.1365-3156.2001.00707.x
Subject(s) - medicine , cancer registry , incidence (geometry) , cancer , cervix , population , sarcoma , demography , gynecology , pediatrics , pathology , environmental health , physics , sociology , optics
In this paper, we report the first results from the population‐based cancer registry for Blantyre district, Malawi, for the period 1994–1998. In this 5‐year period, 1245 cases were recorded in males (an estimated age‐standardized incidence of 92.0 per 100,000) and 1003 in females (an age standardised rate (ASR) of 88.8 per 10 5 ). The overall percentage of cases with histological verification was just 41.8%, indicating that case‐finding outside the laboratory had been quite successful; nevertheless the rather low rates suggest possible underdiagnosis of cancer, as well as cases missed. As in other reports from the region, the contemporary pattern is dominated by Kaposi’s sarcoma (KS) (55.2% cancers in men, 28% in women), the effect of the evolving epidemic of AIDS. The incidence of cervix cancer in women is high (ASR 26.2 per 10 5 ), and there are moderately high rates of oesophageal cancer (ASR 15.4 per 10 5 in men, 9.3 per 10 5 in women). In childhood, the cancer profile is dominated by Burkitt’s lymphoma, which accounts for 42.4% of cancers; KS is now the second most frequent cancer of childhood.