Ovarian cancer in Sudan: Age, marital status, histological types, staging and symptoms

Abstract Ovarian cancer is the leading cause of mortality from female reproductive cancer. No definite symptoms related with early-stage disease and no effective screening methods make its early detection difficult, which results in about two-third patients with advanced-stage ovarian cancer at the diagnosis. In this study, the overall mean age of patients was 46.5 ± 27.5 years. The vast majority of women [90.0%] in this cohort were with the age groups 30–70 years. Ovarian cancer is not common (p = 0.5) below 30 years (frequency = 4.5%) and above 70 years (frequency = 1.7%), the common age group is above 60 years. More than forty percent (50/112, 44.6%) of the patients had symptoms of abdominal discomfort, pelvic pain and irregular bleeding during the last 6 months. A third (38/112, 33.9%) had symptoms for more than a year, while 5.4% (6/112) and 14.3% (16/112) had symptoms for two and three years respectively. The majority of patients (80%, 89/112) were childless. A third (44/112, 39.3%) were single, 40.2% (45/112) were married and had no children, while a fifth (20.5%, 23/112) were married and had children. Thus, singles and childless ladies constituted the majority of the patients [79.5%]. A minority (6/112, 5.4%) of the patients had other types of cancer (endometrial, colon, lung, breast and brain cancers) concurrently with ovarian cancer, with breast and colon cancers as the more common concurrent cancers. Serous adenocarcinoma of the ovaries was seen in the majority of patients in the study cohort (81.1%, 91/112). Advanced stages were seen in more than half of the patients, with stages III & IV seen in 31.3% and 26.8% of patients respectively. A fifth (19.6%) of patients presented with stage II, while a minority (3.6%) was diagnosed with early stages i.e. stage I. Mucinous types were seen in 11 patients (11/112, 9.9%), with 1.8% at stage II, 4.5% at stage III and 3.6% at stage IV. The endometroid type was seen in 10.7% (6/112) of patients with 3.6% in stage I and 1.8% in stage III. A minority was reported as germinoma (1/112, 0.8%) and poorly differentiated carcinomas (2.7%, 3/112).