Survival Rates of Cervical Cancer Patients in Malaysia

Abstract

Cervical cancer is the most common malignant cancer of the female reproductive organs worldwide. Currently,cervical cancer can be prevented by vaccination and detected at an early stage via various screening methods.Malaysia, as a developing country faces a heavy disease burden of cervical cancer as it is the second mostcommon cancer among Malaysian women. This population based study was carried out to fulfil the primary aimof determining the survival rates of Malaysian women with cervical cancer and associated factors. Data wereobtained from two different sources namely, the Malaysian National Cancer Registry (MNCR) and NationalHealth Informatics Centre (NHIC) from 1st January 2000 to 31st December 2005. Kaplan Meier analyses wereconducted to identify the overall survival rates and median survival time. Differences in survival among differentethnic and age group were compared using the log-rank test. A total of 5,859 patients were included. The mediansurvival time for cervical cancer in this study was 65.8 months and the 5-year survival rate was 71.1% . Theoverall observed survival rates at 1, 3 and 5 years were 94.1%, 79.3% and 71.1% respectively. The log-rank testfinding also showed that there were significant differences in the 5-year survival rate among different ethnicgroups. Malays had the lowest survival rate of 59.2% followed by Indians (69.5%) and Chinese (73.8%). Theoverall 5-year survival rate among patients with cervical cancer in Malaysia is relatively good. Age and ethnicgroups remain as significant determining factors for cervical cancer survival rate.