Abstract

BARRANTES SOLIS, Tatiana. Main Causes of Cancer in a Hospital Center: Costa Rica 2003-2007. Rev. costarric. salud pública [online]. 2009, vol.18, n.1, pp.37-42. ISSN 1409-1429.

Objective: To analyze the main causes of cancer in patients at the San Vicente de Paúl Hospital and determine their frequency according to the patient’s place of origin. Materials and methods: Observational, descriptive, analytic study with 1226 cancer patients discharged from the San Vicente de Paúl Hospital (01/01/00 al 30/08/2007). The descriptive analysis was made with Excel® (incidence/100.000 hab/county). A main components analysis and a Poisson regression were performed. This regression was done taking as baseline the county with the lowest incidence according to each cancer type, and for mortality, each county was compared with deaths from all Heredia province. Results: 38% were male and 62% female. The most frequent neoplasies were gastric and breast. The main components analysis demonstrated that Belén, Sarapiquí, Santo Domingo and Heredia counties present the lowest prevalences, and San Rafael county the highest. Poisson regression showed that the highest relative risk is at San Isidro county for thyroid carcinoma (RR 9,89), and analyzing mortality, stomach cancer is the one with most deaths (RR 22). Conclusion: This analysis was made with Hospital discharges and not with official data from all Heredia province. It was found that the most common neoplasies in this period were breast, stomach, cervix, colon and prostate cancer. Magnitude and direction of the associations highly suggest a relationship between patient’s place of origin and the type of cancer presented. This information must be considered to evaluate the Hospital priorities.

Keywords : Cancer; Frequency; Prevalence; Mortality; Relative Risk.

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