Pattern of prostate cancer among a Nigerian population: A study in a single tertiary care centre

Background: Prostate cancer has become a global health challenge because of its rising morbidity and mortality in males.It is the second cause of cancer death following lung cancer in men.It is rare under the age of 40 and its incidence has been shown to increase exponentially with age. Previously, Prostate cancer was thought to be a disease rare in blacks owing to the fact that not so much was known of the disease.Aim and objectives: The objective of the study was to review the prevalence, pattern of presentation and clinic-pathologic findings of prostate cancer in the Department of Radiotherapy,Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH),between January 2001 to December 2010 in comparison to previous and recent studies globally.Methodology: Data collection for all patients histologically diagnosed with Prostate cancer at the Department of Radiotherapy,LUTH,from 1st of January 2001 to 31st of December 2010 was done.Results: A total of 144 cases with histologically confirmed Prostate cancer seen during the ten year study were analysed.The highest frequency was seen in the year 2010 with 34 cases.The age range was 41 to 81years with a mean of 66.19 ±7.30years.Adenocarcinoma was the commonest histological type with 98.6%.9(6.3%) patients had a positive family history of prostate cancer out of which 3(33.3%) had their brother affected the malignancy. 51(35.4%) patients presented with stage IV disease.18(12.5%) patients had a Gleason's score of 6,10(6.9%) patients had a Gleason's score of 7 and 2(1.4%) patients had a Gleason's score of 10. The most common presenting complaints were bone pains seen in 51(35.4%) patients, frequent night urine and difficulty with micturition seen in 50(34.7%) and 42(29.2%) patients respectively.Conclusion: This study showed that prostate cancer is not as rare as it used to be.Reasons attributed to its rarity then were lack of awareness,poor screening facilities and poor diagnosing technique.Keywords: prostate cancer,presentation,tumour characteristics,Nigeri

Prostate Cancer in Nigeria: An Overview

Prostate cancer is the commonest cancer in men in Nigeria. This editorial explores an overview of prostate cancer in Nigeria

Quality of Evidence on Prostate Cancer in Nigeria

Prostate cancer is the 2ndcommonest malignancy in men worldwide. It is, however, the commonest in Nigeria. While several disparities have been documented between Caucasian men and men of African descent, there is limited research on prostate cancer in Nigeria. Evidence-based medicine is a key tool in making clinical decisions and developing screening and treatment guidelines. This review was undertaken to assess the levels of evidence on prostate cancer research in Nigeria. A systematic review of all research published on prostate cancer from January 1975 to May 2018 in Nigeria was conducted. We reviewed all articles found on various databases by searching for “Prostate cancer in Nigeria”. We classified them based on their study designs into different levels of evidence as well as the year of publication. Meta-analyses were not considered in the review.  A total of 171 articles were eligible for this review. Most publications were at the 4th(66%) and 5thlevels of evidence (17%) respectively. No clinical trials on prostate cancer in Nigeria was seen or registered on clinicaltrials.gov, hence no studies at level 1 (a, b or c) of evidence published in Nigeria. The commonest type of study design was cross-sectional studies accounting for 56% of all publications.Prostate cancer research is currently at low levels of evidence in Nigeria. It is pertinent to explore and increase funding channels for cancer-related research