Shocking Statistics On Ghana Prostate Cancer Revealed

Shocking statistics indicates that Ghana has one of the highest prevalence rates of prostate cancer worldwide. According to the post-graduate thesis of Ralph Obu, Founder of Men�s Health Foundation, a prostate care organisation, eight out of 10 Ghanaian men would be diagnosed with prostate cancer in their lifetime. His research work titled: �An evaluation of the factors that might influence prostate cancer related mortality and quality of life (QOL) of Ghanaian men; including the impact of cultural issues and a healthy relationship� has been accepted by Public Health and Epidemiology Society, and has been published by the Global Research Journal for Public Health. Indeed, this unnerving statistics is in sync with similar research conducted by Prostate Cancer- UK, which puts the risk factor for Blackmen at one in every four men. As at 2007, the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital revealed that the country had exceeded the global average of 170 men out of every 100,000, recording a prevalence of 200 men out of every 100,000. According to Ralph Obu, his research proved similar results to the earlier findings which were based on a 2004 finding by one Klufio, which was based on a retrospective analysis of the frequency and pattern of genitourinary (GU) cancers seen at the Korle-Bu Teaching Hospital, in Accra, between 1980 and 1990. According to this study, prostate cancer accounted for 349/479 GU cancers in males (81.4 percent). Wiredu and Armah (2006) conducted a similar analysis for all cancers at the same institution between 1991 and 2000. In this study, prostate cancer accounted for 17.35 percent of all cancers identified and about 31.8 percent of all cancers in males. A global cancer database compiled in 2010 for the International Agency for Research on Cancer indicated that Ghana records an estimated number of 921 new prostate cancer cases every year while an estimated prostate cancer related death of 758 deaths are recorded every year.