Trends in the Incidence of Cancer in Eritrean Hospitals and Eritrean National Health Laboratory 2000-2010

Eritrea is one of the developing countries located in the Eastern Sub-Saharan Africa. Eritrea is experiencing a growing cancer problem, but little is presently known on tumor patterns, cancer epidemiology and ethnic or environmental cancer risk factors. A retrospective study was carried out on the cancer incidence in hospitals of Eritrea and Eritrean National Health Laboratory (ENHL) from 2000 to 2010 using data recorded from the Management Information System (MIS) in ENHL that recorded all cancer cases from across the country. The main objectives of this study were to review the current status of knowledge, summarizing local data, as well as to provide the first baseline data on the cancer incidence in Eritrea. This study was carried out retrospectively and quantitatively by collecting, abstracting, analyzing, coding and interpreting of data recorded in MIS at ENHL in the eleven years of study using CanReg5 software. Generally 19,636 numbers of cases were confirmed by cytology and histology recorded at MIS through the year of 2000 to 2010; out of these 9,482 cases were positive for cancer. From the total positive cancer cases, 39.18% were males and 60.82% were females. The age standardized rate for all cancers in Eritrean hospitals and ENHL from 2000 to 2010 both in men and women combined were 20.3 per 100,000.The rate was higher in women 11.2 per 100,000 than men 9.1 per 100,000. In general, it can be concluded from this research that the incidence of cancer in Eritrean hospitals and ENHL were increased annually from 2000 to 2010, especially in females.The trend of the incidence is increasing with age, therefore the gradual aging of the population might increase the number of cancer cases in Eritrea.