Epidemiology and therapy of malignant hemopathies in Senegal

The objectives of this study were to determine the prevalence of malignant hemopathies among patients in Dakar hospital and to examine the current methods of treatment in Senegal. A retrospective analysis of patients diagnosed in Dakar hospitals from 1st January 1986 to 31st December 1992 revealed 210 cases of malignant hemopathies, but only 155 patient records were retrieved (73.8%). The prevalence of malignant hemopathies was 7/1000 and males were predominant with a sex ratio of 1.6 (p = 0.0001). Acute leukaemias (AL) appeared mainly in young people with a mean age of occurrence of 18.8 years, while immunoproliferative syndromes (IS) and myeloproliferative syndromes (MS) were mostly found in adults with respective mean ages of occurrence of 38.9 and 38.7 years (p = 0.000004 AL vs IS, p = 0.00001 AL vs MS). Concerning therapy, 14.2% of patients died without treatment and 26.1% received only symptomatic treatment. Chemotherapy was employed in 61% of cases, complete remission being obtained in 20.6% of these patients but of no remission in the remaining 79.4%. Mean survival was 2 months for AL, 5 months for IS and 6 months for MS. Close collaboration between haematologists and clinicians and creation of a specialized clinical haematology department will be necessary to overcome current difficulties in the treatment of these affections.