The morbidity and mortality of surgically treated urological patients in a tertiary centre in western Kenya

Objective: To determine the morbidity and mortality of surgically treated urological patients at Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital (MTRH) and compare them with those of other tertiary centres. Design: A five year hospital based, retrospective study reviewing files of patients who underwent surgery for urological problems in MTRH for the period 1st January, 2005 to 31st December, 2009. Setting: The records department of Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital, a 750 bed capacity hospital in the Western region of Kenya. Subjects: Four hundred and twenty patients whose files were complete for the sought data. Main outcome measures: The primary outcome measures were the morbidity and mortality rates. Morbidity was depicted by the postopera-tive complications and hospital length of stay. The secondary outcome measures were patient demography, the type of surgery and the duration of surgery. Results: The male to female ratio was 13.5:1 with 49% of all the patients being older than 50 years. Seventy-seven patients (18.3%) had co morbid diseases with hypertension (22.5%), diabetes mellitus (14.3%) and Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) infection [7.8%] as the top three conditions. The top three procedures were prostate, urethral and bladder surgeries. The morbidity and mortality rates were 5.5% and 1.2% respectively. Conclusion: While prostate disease remains the leading urological problem, urethral strictures are significantly higher than in the other reviewed regions. Co morbidities amenable to preoperative interventions and a relatively younger population make our morbidity and mortality rates acceptably low compared to other tertiary centres.