Clinical characteristics and treatment outcomes of Vulvar cancer patients at a tertiary setting in Ethiopia: A 6-year review

Abstract

Objective

To describe clinical characteristics and treatment outcomes of vulvar cancer patients managed at a gynecologic oncology treatment center in Ethiopia.

Methods and materials

This was a 6-year review of vulvar cancers patients (with and without HIV co-infection) that were managed at St. Paul’s Hospital Millennium Medical College (Ethiopia) between 2017 and 2022. Data were extracted from patient’s medical records using a data extraction tool. Data were analyzed using SPSS version 26. Simple descriptive statistics and Chi-squared test were carried out as appropriate.

Results

After excluding 10 patients for incomplete data, a total of 96 patients were included in the final analysis, out of which 65(67.7%) patients had HIV co-infection. Surgery with or without chemotherapy was the most common (62/96, 64.8%) treatment modality provided for the patients while the remaining 34 patients were treated with primary chemoradiation. Among those who had surgery, the majority of them (43/62, 69.4%) were managed with surgery alone, followed by another 16(25.8%) patients who were treated with neoadjuvant chemotherapy followed by surgery.

Conclusion

In this study, most vulvar cancer patients (more than three-quarters) had favorable survival outcomes at a median follow-up of 3 years post-standard treatment for vulvar cancer.