Cancer research in Africa will have a pivotal role in cancer control planning in this continent. However, environments (such as those in academic or clinical settings) with limited research infrastructure (laboratories, biorespositories, databases) coupled with inadequate funding and other resources have hampered African scientists from carrying out rigorous research. In September 2012, over 100 scientists with expertise in cancer research in Africa met in London to discuss the challenges in performing high-quality research, and to formulate the next steps for building sustainable, comprehensive and multi-disciplinary programmes relevant to Africa. This was the first meeting among five major organizations: the African Organisation for Research and Training in Africa (AORTIC), the Africa Oxford Cancer Foundation (AfrOx), and the National Cancer Institutes (NCI) of Brazil, France and the USA. This article summarizes the discussions and recommendations of this meeting, including the next steps required to create sustainable and impactful research programmes that will enable evidenced-based cancer control approaches and planning at the local, regional and national levels.
African Region (AFR)
The African Breast Cancer - Disparities in Outcomes (ABC-DO) study is a multi-country sub-Saharan African study of determinants of breast cancer outcomes. The number of women diagnosed with breast cancer per year is rising rapidly in Africa, and the consequences of poor survival are worsened by the young age of women affected. ABC-DO will recruit women from four public hospitals in Nigeria, Uganda, South Africa, and Namibia and examine the full journey of breast cancer patients, both pre- and post-diagnosis, in order to identify modifiable determinants of survival, to be able to prevent avoidable deaths from breast cancer in African women.
Introduction: Non-communicable diseases, and especially cancers, are recognized as an
increasing problem for low- and middle income countries. Effective control programmes
require adequate information on the size, nature, and evolution of the health problem which
they pose.
Methods: We present estimates of the incidence and mortality of cancer in Africa in 2012,
derived from “Globocan 2012”, published by the International Agency for Research on Cancer.
Results: There were 847,000 new cancer cases (6% of the world total) and 591,000 deaths (7.2%
of the world total) in the 54 countries of Africa in 2012, with about three quarters in the 47
countries of sub-Saharan Africa. While the cancer profiles often differ markedly between
regions, the most common cancers in men were prostate (16.4% of new cancers), liver (10.7%)
and Kaposi sarcoma (6.7%); in women, by far the most important are cancers of the breast
(27.6% of all cancers) and cervix uteri (20.4%).
Conclusions: These results are based on the best data currently available, and provide a
reasonable appraisal of the cancer situation in Africa. Nevertheless, there are still deficiencies in
surveillance systems, particularly in Sub-Saharan Africa and, specifically, of their most vital
component, population based cancer registries. With the number of annual cancer cases and
deaths likely to increase by at least 70% by 2030 there is a pressing need for a coordinated
approach to improving the extent and quality of services for cancer control in Africa, and better
surveillance systems with which they can be planned and monitored.