Burden of cancer in the general surgical population in the eastern region of Ghana

Objective To estimate the surgical burden of malignant disease in the Eastern Region of Ghana. Design Descriptive cross-sectional study. Setting Regional hospital in the eastern region of Ghana. Participants Patients treated by the surgery department at Eastern Regional Hospital in Koforidua, Ghana. Interventions None. Primary and secondary outcome measures Primary outcome was incidence of malignancy and secondary outcome descriptive differences between patients who had a benign indication for surgery compared with those with a malignant indication for surgery. Results A total of 1943 inpatient surgical procedures were performed from 2015 to 2017 with 13.4% (261) of all procedures ultimately performed for malignancy. Of all breast procedures performed, 95.2% of procedures resulted in a malignant diagnosis. The remaining subtypes of procedures had rates ranging from <1% to 41.2% of procedures performed for malignant disease. Additionally, this study found over 13% of patients admitted to the surgical service for breast cancer ultimately did not undergo a surgical procedure. Conclusion This is the first study investigating the burden of malignant disease in the Eastern Region of Ghana. We found a substantial prevalence of malignant disease in the surgical population in this region. This information can be used to aid in future medical resource planning in this region.