The level of awareness of breast cancer is still growing particularly in developing countries such as Nigeria. Unfortunately, the down side of low awareness include among others, the lack of adequate social support systems. It is therefore necessary look into the availability of support systems for breast cancer patients. This cross-sectional descriptive study enrolled 40 females accessing medical care for breast cancer purposively in a tertiary hospital in Nigeria. The study participants had received chemotherapy following the surgical removal of the tumour. They were on post-chemotherapy routine check as at the time of the study. A structured questionnaire was administered by two trained interviewers to obtain information on available support system to the study participants. Attitude to the condition among the patients included anxiety and fear (47.5%) as the highest while optimism was the least on the ranking at 25%. Those whose spouses were supportive ranked low at 12.5 %, while majority of them reported their spouses to be indifferent to their situation. Again, support from other family member’s apart spouses was low at 7.5%. None of the participants was receiving formal support from any agency as at the time of the study. The study concludes that anxiety and fear are prevalently experienced among breast cancer patients in the study area, while optimism is at a low ebb. Support systems exists solely within the informal circle of family and even at that, very few experience good support from family.

Surgical operations constitute an integral part of medical management of different health challenges. Developing countries suffer from under-reporting of health conditions even when such conditions are fairly common in occurrence. This study observed common surgical cases with a view to highlighting possible associations with gender. A retrospective cross-sectional descriptive approach was adopted. A total of 626 cases presenting for surgical review between a two-year periods from September 2020 to August 2022 at University of Calabar Teaching Hospital, Calabar in Nigeria were reviewed. Data analysis to test for gender association was carried out using chi-square analysis on SPSS 22.0 at 95% confidence level with p-value of ≤ 0.05. The highest frequency of 56% was recorded for breast tumour. This was followed by hernia and goitre which accounted for 20% and 15 of surgical cases respectively. Lesser frequencies were observed for lipoma (4%), appendicitis (2%) and fistula (2%). The least among the commonly observed cases was testicular torsion which was recorded to be 1%. Breast tumour and goitre were significantly higher in females compared to males, while hernia was seen to be significantly higher in males compared to females. Testicular torsion occurred solely in males. This study concludes that significant gender associations exist in the distribution of surgical cases at the study centre. While female preponderance was observed for breast tumour and goitre cases, hernia was prevalent among the males.

Introduction: Epidural anesthesia and analgesia have the potential to reduce or eliminate the perioperative physiologic stress responses to surgery and thereby decrease surgical complications and improve outcomes. This study aimed to integrate experimental and clinical data addressing the physiologic effects of epidural anesthesia and postoperative epidural analgesia on surgical patients and to review the real and potential benefits of this technology concerning patient outcomes. Methods: This prospective observational study was conducted at the Department of Anesthesia, Upazilla Health Complex, Daganbhuiya, Feni, Bangladesh. The study was carried out from June 2020 to July 2021. A total of 110 patients were selected as study subjects as per inclusion criteria. Result: Out of 110 study subjects 20 (18.19%) subjects were in the 25-30 years age group, 30 (27.27%) were in the 31-35 years age group and the rest 60 (54.54%) were in >35 years, age group. Regarding the region of surgery done, 50% of subjects underwent lower abdominal surgery, 20% underwent surgery of lower extremities, 15% underwent labor pain, and the rest 15% underwent cardiothoracic surgery. Concerning intraoperative complication, hypotension was predominant which constituted 9% of total study subjects followed by nausea & vomiting seen in 3% of patients. 2.5% of patients had bradycardia, 2% experienced hypertension, only 1% of patients had tachycardia, and none experienced poor anesthesia. In terms of postoperative complications, post-dural puncture headache was predominant which was seen in 4% of patients, 2% had prolonged ICU stay, 2% had cardiopulmonary complications, 1% had postoperative pain, and 1% experienced occlusion of catheter and catheter fragment retention. It was seen that 95.5% of total patients did not need ephedrine or atropine, only 2% of patients needed ephedrine during the operation due to hypotension and 2.5% needed atropine during the operation due to bradycardia. Regarding the advantages of epidural anesthesia, reduced ileus was seen in 105 (95.45%) patients, reduced length of hospital stay in 108 (98.18%) patients, and reduced 30-day morbidity and mortality in 110 (100%) patients. The overall surgical outcome was excellent as well. In 98% of cases, the surgical outcome was satisfactory and only 2% showed poor surgical outcome. Conclusion: The effect of anesthetic and postoperative analgesic techniques on perioperative outcomes varies with the type of operation performed. Overall, epidural analgesia provides better postoperative pain relief and surgical outcomes.