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Research

Survival analysis of cancer patients: a case study of Cape Coast Teaching Hospital, Ghana

11 Jun 2026
Mahama Jato Asuma, Akoto Yaw Omari Sasu, Alhassan Faisal, Akulibile James, Addae Bernard Mensah

Cancer remains a major public health concern in Ghana, and continuous evaluation of survival outcomes is critical for informing clinical decision-making and health policy. This study examined survival patterns among 394 cancer patients receiving care at the Cape Coast Teaching Hospital, focusing on gender and treatment exposure, including chemotherapy, radiotherapy and combined therapy, without directly comparing treatment modalities. Kaplan–Meier analysis indicated broadly comparable median survival experiences across gender and treatment groups, suggesting only minor differences in overall survival patterns. The log-rank test showed a statistically significant difference in survival between males and females (p-value = 0.0053), indicating that females had a higher likelihood of mortality relative to males. Cox proportional hazards models, however, indicated that females indeed had a higher risk of death compared to males but this was not statistically significant (p-value = 0.263). The same conclusion was drawn when accounting for treatment exposure to the gender groups. Time-varying Cox analyses further confirmed that the effects of gender and its interaction with treatment remained stable over time, with no significant time-dependent effects observed (p-values all >0.05). The results also show that treatment types observed had similar survival curves. These findings suggest that although unadjusted comparisons indicate potential gender differences, the hazard of death, when adjusted for treatment, did not differ significantly by gender and no time-dependent effects were detected. This underscores the importance of early diagnosis, timely treatment initiation and equitable access to care. The study, however, highlighted the need for larger, multi-center studies incorporating additional clinical and socioeconomic variables, such as treatment and cancer type, cancer stage, among others, to help better understand cancer survival dynamics in Ghana and the world at large.

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