Complications from Pelvic Irradiation of 'Cancer of Cervix – The University of Benin Teaching Hospital Experience

Abstract

Summary: Cancer of cervix is the second most common female malignancy worldwide. The incident is about 18.4 per 100,000 women in Nigeria. Pelvic irradiation remains a standard form of treatment beside surgery, especially that most of the patients in developing countries present during late stages of the disease when surgical intervention will result in high morbidity. This study outlines complications of pelvic irradiation and the treatment in a tertiary health care facility in Nigeria. It is a retrospective study. The patient's data extracted from the medical records into Microsoft excel spreadsheet, analysed using Statistical Package Software for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 23.0. The P-value less than 0.05 was considered significant. Our findings show that moist skin desquamation was the most common complication while fistula formation was the least complication. Out of the 108 participants, 40 of them have moist desquamation, while, 2 patients have fistula formation. Most of the complications occurred at the late stage of the disease, stage III (48.1%) and stage II (42.1%). The commonest pathology was adenocarcinoma (99%). Complication from pelvic irradiation, following treatment of cancer of cervix is a major cause of marital instability and separation, so aggressive treatment of the complication is highly advocated.