Clinicopathological presentation of patients with prostate cancer at Muhimbili National Hospital in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania

Abstract

Prostate cancer (PC) is the most common type of cancer in men and is of major public health importance worldwide. This study aimed to establish the clinicopathological presentation and its impression in disease progression like to Castrate Resistant Prostate Cancer (CRPC) of patients treated for Prostate Cancer at Muhimbili National Hospital (MNH) in Dar es Salaam.This was a retrospective descriptive hospital based study at Muhimbili National Hospital. Patients who were treated for prostate cancer were identified. Information regarding primary prostatic cancer treatment, clinical disease progression symptoms, and age of the patients were collected. A total of 293 case notes were reviewed of which 189 patients who were treated for prostatic carcinoma with androgen deprivation, 96(50.8%) met the criteria for the diagnoses of Castrate Resistant Prostate Cancer (CRPC) and their mean age was 71.23±4.2. About half of our patients 146(49.7%) presented with history of urine retention necessitating urethral catheterization but also patients had hard, nodulated, grade three prostate though 48.2% had missing documentation of Digital Rectal Examination (DRE) findings. Most of the patients had a poorly differentiated histology with PSA over 100ng/l. Almost all patients had a clinical progression signifying a metastatic disease. Majority of patients presented with symptomatic prostate cancer contrary to the natural history of prostate cancer at its early stage. Urine retention and hard nodulated grade three prostate were the commonest clinical presentation whereas poorly differentiated carcinoma of the prostate was a common pathological finding among patients with prostate cancer MNH in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.