Background: Uterine cancer is a top-ranking women’s cancer worldwide with wide incidence variations across countries and by rural and urban areas. Hormonal exposures and access to healthcare vary between rural and urban areas, globally. Egypt has an overall low incidence of uterine cancer but variable rural and urban lifestyles. This study explored differences in clinical and demographic characteristics of uterine cancer during the period of 1999-2010 in rural and urban Gharbiah province, Egypt.

Methods: Data for all 660 uterine cancer patients included in the Gharbiah-population Cancer Registry were abstracted. Clinical variables included tumor location, histolopathologic diagnosis, stage, grade, and treatment. Demographic variables included age, rural-urban residence, parity, and occupation. Crude and age-adjusted incidence rates and rate ratios by rural-urban residence were calculated.

Results: No significant differences were observed in most clinical and demographic characteristics between rural and urban patients. Age standardized incidence rate (ASR) was 2.5 times higher in urban compared to rural areas (6.9 and 2.8 per 100,000 in urban and rural areas, respectively). The rate ratio showed that the incidence rate in urban areas was 2.46 times the rate in rural areas.

Discussion: The rate of uterine cancer in urban areas in Gharbiah is almost similar to the corresponding rates globally. However, the rate in rural areas in this population increased over the past decade, but still is lower than the corresponding global rates.

Conclusion: Future studies should examine the etiologic factors related to increasing rates in rural areas and quantifying the improvement in rural case finding.