Toxic Waste Spilled in Abidjan in 2006: Effects on the Incidence and Prevalence of Malignant Haemopathies in Côte D'Ivoire

Background: August 19, 2006, haematotoxic waste was spilled in the district of Abidjan. We contacted after, the increase of number of patients with haematological malignancies in our department. Objective: To estimate the prevalence and incidence of haematological malignancies since the spilling of toxic waste in Abidjan. Materials and Methods: It was a retrospective and descriptive study with duration of three years (from 2007 to 2009) at the department of Clinical hematology in Abidjan. We selected all records of patients between 1999 to 2006, then we included the news cases of hematological malignancies which diagnostic was made from 2007 to 2009. 100 patients had constituted our sample. Results: 3865 patients were hospitalized during the period from 2007 to 2009, among which 201 cases of haematological malignancies, a prevalence of 5.2%. There were 100 new cases, an incidence of 33.33 new cases/year. The average age of patients was 34.83 years with extremes of 6 months and 81 years. The majority of patients resided in Abidjan (68%) and was male. The predominant hematological malignancy was lymphoproliferative syndromes (46,76%%) with an incidence of 15.67 new cases/year. We found 60 cases (29.85%) of myeloproliferative syndrome and 47 cases (23.38%) of acute leukemia with an incidence of 9.67 and 8 new cases/year, respectively. Conclusion: The number of haematological malignancies seems to increase in Abidjan after the spilling of toxic waste since 2006 in Abidjan. Although this number could be related to the effect of this toxic waste other risk factors should not be completely excluded.