Clinico-pathological characteristics of cervical cancer in Ghanaian women

Cervical cancer is a major cause of cancer related mortality in the developing countries, although preventable. The aim of this study was to use a retrospective descriptive study to determine the prevalence and the clinico-pathological characteristics of cervical cancer among genital tract ma-lignancies. This study reviewed all histologically confirmed female genital tract malignancies for cervical cancers from January 2002 to December 2011. The clinico-pathological features of women with cervical cancer were analyzed using SPSS software (version 18). A total of 1011(70.8%) out of 1,427 female genital tract malignancies were cervical cancers. The average prevalence of cervical cancer was 71.0%. The mean age of women with cervical cancer was 57.8(SD=13.8) years. The youngest patient was 22 years. The commonest (76.9%) presentation was bleeding per vaginalm followed by fungating cervical masses (12.4%). Majority (88.9%) of the bleeding were unprovoked and in postmenopausal women (98.8%). The major types of cervical cancers were Squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) (90.1%) and adenocarcinoma (5.8%), both were common in the elderly. The com-mon histological subtypes of cervical cancers in the study were; keratinizing SCC (73.3%), non-keratinizing SCC (14.7%), endometroid adenocarcinoma (4.5%), adenosquamous carcinoma (2.6%) and basaloid SCC (1.4%). This study found high prevalence of cervical cancer among female geni-tal tract cancers in Accra Ghana. The women were relatively older and presented with advanced stage of the disease. SCC was the major histological type of cervical cancer.Keywords: Ghana, cervical cancer, postmenopausal, women, premalignant, genital tract