Survival Analysis of Cancer Patients at Teaching Hospitals in Ethiopia

Abstract

Survival analysis today is widely implemented in the fields of medical and biological sciences. The basic principle behind the survival analysis implies to a statistical approach designed to take into account the amount of time utilized for a study period, or the study of time between entry into observation and a subsequent event. The event of interest pertains to death and the analysis consists of following the subject until death. This study aims to analysis the survival status of cancer patients, to identify the main cancer in women at study area and to determine the survival time of women with cancer after undergoing certain treatments in the selected teaching hospital(s).  A random sample of 460 cancer patients was selected using purposive sampling from the study area, in 2016 to 2018. Parametric and non-parametric models, Logistic regression models, Statistical distributions and tests methods of data analysis were used in this study. The demographic information: age, educational level, treatments, economic level, marital status and stages of cancer were included and Comparisons were made among major cancers in patients. The findings of the study suggest that among major types of cancer in patients, breast cancer was the highly affecting the females in the study area. There are 62.15 % survival and 37.35 % of not survived patients in the data and the majority of patients (about 88 %) are diagnosed when they are in stages 1 and 2 and very few (about 8 %) of them are diagnosed in advanced stage of cancer. It also reveals that the average tumor sizes are significantly different for all ages and stages. By grouping ages into groups of 5, I also stratified the number of patients diagnosed with cancer in different stages and the diagnoses at different stages were different.  Finally, Results of survival time shows that the surviving of cancer patient were different at different ages and treatments level.