Detailed demographics and the prevalence of comorbidities in ovarian cancer patients in Western Region of Saudi Arabia

Abstract

Objectives: The study was carried out to report the descriptive demographics, comorbidities, and adverse effects in women with ovarian cancer attending the King Abdulaziz Medical City (KAMC), Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Materials and Methods: The current retrospective study was conducted at King Saud Bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences between the months of July and August 2021. The study sample included all the patients that had been admitted in the Princess Noorah Oncology Center in KAMC and fulfilling the two inclusion criteria (a) age not <18 and (b) confirmed histological or cytological diagnosis as per the International Federation of Gynecology and Obstetrics guidelines. A comprehensive review of the charts was conducted by a team of researchers for the extraction of data which included detailed demographics, tumor characteristics, comorbidities, and adverse effects. Results: A total of 119 ovarian cancer patients were identified, out of which 90 were included in the analysis. Most of the patients were aged above 40 years. A total of 67 of 90 (74.44%) tumors were of higher stage (II+IV) and 54 of 90 (60.0%) were located bilaterally. Among the comorbidities, we found that diabetes mellitus, hypertension, dyslipidemia, asthma, and hypothyroidism were the top five ones. Furthermore, most of the patients (82.1%) underwent a surgical intervention for the primary treatment of the tumor. The top adverse effect of the chemotherapy was the gastrointestinal ones (40.3%), followed by renal and metabolic disorders. Conclusions: Patients with ovarian cancer were of higher age and with advanced stage of the disease contrary to the reported trends in world literature. Almost all reported with one of more of the comorbidities and majority had surgical intervention as first line of treatment.