Age of first diagnosis and incidence rate of uterine fibroids in Ghana. A retrospective cohort study

BACKGROUND: Uterine fibroids are benign tumors that grow in or on the uterus of women. Globally, they occur in more than 80% of women of African ancestry and 70% in white women. Uterine fibroid requires much attention because of its high incidence rate among women of all races and ages. This study sought to document the age of first diagnosis and incidence rates of uterine fibroids in our urban setting. METHODS: This study reviewed and analyzed the ages and year of diagnosis of all 2,469 patients with the first diagnosis of uterine fibroids from 1(st) January 2018 to 31(st) December 2021 in South-Central Ghana. The obtained data were analyzed using GNU PSPP, Python on Jupyter Notebook and Libre Office Calc with statistical significance level set at p≤0.05. RESULTS: The overall average age was 36.29±8.08 years, with age range 17–61 years and the age groups with the highest frequencies were 35–39 years (n = 642, 26.00%), 30–34 years (n = 563, 22.80%) and 40–44 years (n = 381, 15.43%). The mean ages of the patients in 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021 were 36.70±8.00 years (95%CI = 35.97–37.43), 37.07±7.66 years (95%CI = 36.45–37.70), 35.92±7.87 years (95%CI = 35.30–36.53) and 35.78±8.54 years (95%CI = 35.19–36.38) respectively. The incidence rate (per 100,000) of uterine fibroids in 2018, 2019, 2020 and 2021 were 66.77 (95% CI = 60.63–72.90), 81.86 (95%CI = 75.19–88.58), 85.60 (95%CI = 78.85–92.35) and 92.40 (95%CI = 85.88–98.92) respectively, with 35–39 age group recording the highest in all years. CONCLUSION: The incidence rate of uterine fibroids increased as the years progressed and it is mostly high in 35–39 years age category, with a decreasing annual mean age trend indicative of early diagnosis.