Cancer of the penis at Kenyatta National Hospital

Abstract

Objectives: To determine how common cancer of penis is in this locality compared to all other malignant tumours and urological malignancies, and to determine and comment on the various methods of treatment available at KNH. Design: A retrospective case study. Setting: Kenyatta National Referral Hospital, Nairobi. Subjects: All patients with histologically confirmed cancer of penis at the Kenyatta National hospital between January 1970 and December 1999. Results: There were 55 patients with penile cancer representing 0.1% of all malignancies during the study period. The mean age was 47.9 years with a peak incidence between 40-61 year age groups. Penile cancer was the most rare urological tumour representing 5.1%. The most common was prostate cancer (56.0%), followed by bladder cancer (25.0%), kidney cancer (7.9%), and testicular cancer (6.1%). Thirty eight patients (69.1%) presented with advanced disease, Jacksons stages III and IV. The majority (96.4%) of the patients had glandular and preputial involvement. Histologically, 56.4% had well differentiated squamous cell carcinoma, (23.6%) had moderately differentiated and (20.0%) had undifferentiated carcinoma. Forty patients (72.7%) were circumcised, nine patients (16.4%) were circumcised as adolescents and three patients (5.5%) circumcised as adults. Twenty five patients had partial penectomy with radiotherapy and or chemotherapy. Eight patients had total penectomy and radiotherapy while four patients had local excision and radiotherapy. Eleven other patients had radiotherapy either alone or combined with chemotherapy. Two patients had circumcision only and inguinal lymphadenectomy was effected on five patients after penectomy and radiotherapy. Conclusion: Penile cancer is rare and the least common urological malignancy in this locality. It occurs in younger men with a mean age of 47.9 years, and presents as advanced Jackson's stages III and IV disease. The majority of patients had penectomy and local excision followed by radiotherapy.

Epidemiological study of penile cancer in Pernambuco: experience of two reference centers

“…These results are similar to a Brazilian epidemiological study of PC (6), in a study performed in the state of Pará (8) and in the Kenyan study (21). And different from the North American study (10), where 62.4% of patients were diagnosed in the initial and localized phases.…”

“…60.7% of patients waited more than 7 months to be diagnosed with PC, in accordance to the Kenyan study (21), where more than 80% of patients were diagnosed after 6 months of symptoms, and to the Belem study (8), where the patients waited for up to 11 months until diagnosis. This fact can be explained by ignorance, taboos, bad health care system, inappropriate treatments by uninformed physicians, delay to referral to urologists; these aspects are associated with late diagnosis and more advanced disease.…”

“…Tumor differentiation had the same characteristics of other papers (8,21), being well differentiated carcinoma the most common observed tumor (Figure-3).…”

Penile Cancer: Report of 3 Cases and Review of the Literature

“…In Africa, few cases have been published in the literature and the studies are retrospective. Magoha and Kaale [2,3] reported 31 cases in 20 years. In Senegal, it represents 0.97% of the adult human cancers and 0.35% of all cancers [2].…”

“…The most common histological form is squamous cell carcinoma (95%). [3] In Africa, there people view the issue as taboo and lack information, thus consultations occur at a late stage where the prognosis is guarded. The purpose of this study was to investigate the clinical and therapeutic aspects of neoplasms of the penis in our experience.…”