Late Cancer Presentation and Increase Palliative Care Burden on Healthcare Delivery in Makurdi Benue State: A Need for Strategic Intervention

The study employed a narrative review design for the purpose of identifying statistical findings on late-stage cancer diagnosis from previously published studies to use as evidence to describe the prevailing incidence of patients’ presenting with late-stage cancer disease in Benue State. The data were searched from journals indexed in Google scholar, Semantic scholar, ResearchGate, Cross-references, PubMed, DOAJ, and Abstract journals. The statistical results obtained from the review shows that, late-stage cancer presentation among people who develop the disease is a common situation in Nigeria. Specifically, to Benue State one among the few published studies reported that patients who had presented with advanced clinical diseases as evidenced by fungating masses, palpable axillary nodes, are indications of histologically established metastatic disease. Another study applying the FIGO Staging method revealed that (81.8%) presented with advanced stage disease ranging from stage IIb–IV and stage III disease was the commonest with (42.9%) of cases. A recent study revealed that (46.7%) of patients were diagnosed with stage II disease. Whereas (49.1%) presented with advanced stage III and (1.3%) stage IV disease respectively. Based on these evidences, is the pertinent need to solicit for a strategic intervention by various stakeholders in the health system to establish a specialized palliative care service facility in Benue State. Late cancer presentation is an eligible condition for palliative care; early and routine referral of cancer patients for palliative care will accord patients the benefits of enjoying improved QOL and delay of early death from the disease.