Symptomatology of Gynecological Malignancies: Experiencesin the Gynecology Out-Patient Clinic of a Tertiary CareHospital in Kolkata, India

Abstract

<b>Background:</b> This cross-sectional observational study was undertaken in a gynecology out-patient clinic toidentify the symptoms suggestive of gynecological malignancies followed by histopathological confirmation of theirdiagnoses and to determine the proportion of the histopathologically confirmed cases specific to sites. <br/><b>Methods</b>: Ina gynecology out-patient clinic in Kolkata, India, patients with symptoms suggestive of gynecological malignancieswere screened to identify possible cancer cases. Diagnoses were confirmed by histopathology. One hundredthirteen patients with histopathologically confirmed gynecological malignancies were interviewed further.<br/><b>Results</b>: This study shows that 5.3% of the overall outpatients or nearly one-fourth (23.7%) of the patients withthe symptoms suggestive of gynecological malignancies was histopathologically confirmed as having gynecologicalmalignancies. Most of the patients (87.0%) with the symptoms suggestive of gynecological malignancies reportedexcessive, offensive with or without blood stained vaginal discharge, followed by irregular, heavy or prolongedvaginal bleeding (61.4%). The commonest histopathologically confirmed gynecological malignancy was cervicalcancer (61.9%), followed by ovarian cancer (23.9%). <br/><b>Conclusions</b>: This study highlights the need to increase theawareness about the symptoms of gynecological malignancies among women and the community. Health carepersonnel have a major role to identify the warning symptoms early for further investigation of the possiblecases of gynecological malignancies.