Histopathology Patterns of Skin Cancer in Jimma University Medical Center, Jimma, South West Ethiopia: Four Year Retrospective Study

Abstract

Background: Skin cancer is a major global public health problem and the incidence has been increasing at an alarming rate worldwide. In our country the incidence of skin cancer is unknow due to very few researches are done on skin cancer. Objective: To determine histopathologic patterns of skin cancer in Jimma Medical Center,2022. Method and materials: A retrospective cross-sectional study was done for all cases with histologically diagnosed skin cancer at the Jimma university medical center between August 2018 and August 2022. Data was entered into Epi data version 3.1and analyzed by SPSS version 20. For all statistical significance tests, p<0.05 and AOR with 95% CI were used. Descriptive and analytic studies were done. Cross tabulation and logistic regression with multivariate analysis were done to identify independent predictor factors and determine the association between variables. Results: Among a total of 548 skin biopsies, 207 cases were skin cancer constituting 37.8% of all skin lesions with biopsy request form completeness rate of 91.2%. The majority of skin cancer occurred on the 7th decade 49 (23.7%) followed by 6th decade 47 (22.7%) with male to female ratio of 1: 1.1 and mean age of 50 ± 16.1. The commonest site for skin cancer was lower extremity 113 (54.6%) and ulceration 162 (78.3%) was the most common presenting symptom. Squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) 98 (47.3%) was the commonest skin cancer followed by cutaneous melanoma (CM) 50 (24.2%) and DFSP 19 (9.2%). Using lower extremity as reference group, head and neck skin cancer cases had AOR of 6.03 being diagnosed as NMSC (CI: 2.23- 16.31, P= 0.000) and trunk skin cancer cases had AOR of 9.204 (CI: 1.16- 73, p= 0.036) being diagnosed as NMSC. Conclusion: NMSC was 3 times more common than MSC and squamous cell carcinoma is the most common skin cancer followed by cutaneous melanoma. Skin cancer was commonly seen in 7 th and 6th. Decades. Lower extremity was the most common site of involvement, further studies needed to determine predisposing risk factors. NMSC and MSC were associated with anatomic site warrants further study.