The overall evaluatıon of cancer cases based on the Pathology records of Duzce Unıversıty Hospıtal. An epıdemıologıcal study of a 10- year perıod (1999-2008)

KEYWORDS: Düzce, cancer, statistical distribution, epidemiologyINTRODUCTİON: Cancer contemporarily constitutes one of the most significant health problems throughout the world. Consequently, a remarkable amount of investigations is performed in terms of preventing the development of cancer. An important aspect of measures against cancer is to determination of extend and prevalence of cancer. Understanding characteristics and behavior of cancer is the key issue in providing preventive steps and developing proper strategies in the concept of early diagnosis and treatment.The objective of this study was to determine the regional cancer incidence and cancer types based on the pathology records of department of pathology, Medical School, Düzce University. Secondly, the aim was to discuss the properties of these cases with the other similar reports both from Turkey and the world.MATERIALS AND METHODS: A systemic retrospective review of all pathology records including all benign and malign cases was performed at the Department of Pathology, Medical School, Düzce University between January 1, 1999 and December 31, 2008. The results were classified based on year, age, sex and organ systems. Statistical analyses were carried out using Microsoft Office excel version 2007. The duplication of data was particularly prevented by excluding the multiple records in the case of more than one biopsies of the same cancer in the same patient.RESULTS: A total of 31916 pathology records was retrospectively analyzed. The ratio of positive cases was 14.85% (4740/31916) including all benign and malign tumors. Among them 2204 (46.49%) were male and 2586 (53.51%) were female. On the other hand, malign tumors constituted 6.5% (2076/31916) of all cases and the percentage of male and female patients were 67.80% (1409/2076) and 32.2% (667/2076), respectively.The occurrence of malign tumors was mostly seen between 60 and 69 years of ages, while the predominant age period was between 40 and 49 years of ages considering both benign and malign patients. Male patients had cancers mostly after 60 years of age and the predominant period was between 60 and 69 years of ages. Considering the female patients, they had more cancers between 10 and 60 years of age than males, and the most prevalent period was between 40 and 49 years of ages.The prevalence of benign and malign tumors with respect to their origin were cutaneous system, female genital tract and gastrointestinal system in 21.37%, 20.9% and 14.36 % of cases, respectively. Considering the malign tumors, the distribution was cutaneous system, respiratory tract and gastrointestinal tract in 20.76%, 17.27% and 17.22% of patients, respectively.On the other hand, the order of cancers was genital tract (23.3%), respiratory tract (23.1%), gastrointestinal tract (15.8%) in male patients, while it was cutaneous system (28.63%), gastrointestinal tract (20.54%) and breast (14.69%) for the female patients.CONCLUSION: The results of this study demonstrated a similar cancer distribution with corresponding studies from the other regions of Turkey, although some differences were noted in the order of cancers. This observations suggests that a similar strategy against cancer is applicable throughout Turkey.