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- Title
Cancer referrals at African Inland Church Kijabe Hospital, Kiambu County (2014–2020) and the impact of COVID-19.
- Authors
Kamita, Moses; Bird, Peter; Akinyi, Beryl; Kamau, Rosemary Wangari; Carter, Robert; Muma, Sarah; Adam, Mary; Makori, Timothy; Figueroa, Jonine D; Makokha, Francis
- Abstract
In Kenya, cancer is the third leading cause of death. The African Inland Church Kijabe Hospital (AICKH) is a level 4 missionary hospital. The hospital serves the Kenyan population in many areas, including cancer care, and some of these services were affected during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. We aimed to leverage a recently established hospital-based cancer registry of patients treated at AICKH between 2014 and 2020 to describe the cancer cases and patient referral patterns seen at AICKH during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. A cross-sectional retrospective survey was conducted through medical records abstraction in the surgery, breast clinic, palliative care and pathology departments. A total of 3279 cases were included in the study, with females accounting for 58.1% of the cases. The top-three cancers overall were breast (23.0%), oesophagus (20.5%) and prostate (8.6%). There was a minimal increase in the number of cancer cases in 2020 (1.7%) compared with 2019, with an increase of 19.3% in 2019 compared with 2018. In conclusion, AICKH is one of the few hospitals in Kenya where a large number of cancer patients seek healthcare, and referral of cancer cases changed in 2020, which may be due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Future efforts can leverage this registry to determine the impacts of cancer diagnosis and treatment on survival outcomes.
- Subjects
KENYA; COVID-19 pandemic; COVID-19; CANCER hospitals; HOSPITALS; SURVIVAL rate; MEDICAL referrals
- Publication
International Health (1876-3413), 2023, Vol 15, Issue 5, p547
- ISSN
1876-3413
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1093/inthealth/ihad007