Background: Cancer figures among the leading causes of morbidity and mortality worldwide. More than 60% of world total new annual cancer cases occur in Africa, Asia, and Central and South America. In Ethiopia, cancer accounts for about 5.8% of total national mortality. The increasing burden of common non communicable diseases such as cancer leads to epidemiological shift of disease burden to non-infectious diseases. However, lesser emphasis is given to cancer. Although, measuring the burden is important to design prevention strategy, a comprehensive estimate is lacking in Ethiopia. Hence, we aimed to systematically measure the burden of cancer in Ethiopia.
Methods: The research used data from Global burden of disease study (GBD 2016) and Global health Estimate 2016; that originally collected the information through vital registration, verbal autopsy, surveys, reports, published scientific articles and modeling.
Results: In 2016, cancer caused an estimated 50913.5 (95% CI: 36092.1–73018.8) deaths among all age and both gender groups with a crude death rate of 49.7/100,000 and ASDR of 93.5/100,000 population. It contributed for 18.5% of NCD related death and 7.3% of total death, 16.9% of NCR related ASDR and 9% of total ASDR, and 12.7% of national NCD related DALYs and 4.3% of the national total DALYs. The number of death and DALYs from cancer has been increased by 47.4% and 45.1% respectively. Whereas CDR and ASDR from cancer has been declined by 4.2% and 9.7% respectively. The top five causes of cancer related mortality was from Other malignant neoplasms, breast cancer, cervix uteri cancer, colon and rectum cancers, and leukemia whereas lymphomas along with the aforementioned cancers contribute for the highest cancer DALYs. Conclusion and recommendation : the burden of malignant neoplasms (cancer) is remarkably increasing throughout the periods between 2000 and 2016. It carries the higher burden of age standardized death rate (ASDR) from NCD. Specifically, other malignant neoplasms, Breast cancer, cervix uteri cancer, colon and rectum cancers, leukemia and lymphomas caused the highest burden of cancer. Therefore, the existing disease prevention strategies should incorporate NCD prevention strategies with a particular emphasis for cancer screening, prevention and care.