Roswell Park Surgeon Helps Create Nigeria's First Cancer Center

Nigeria’s population — about 179 million people — is more than half that of the United States, yet until a few months ago, its citizens didn’t have access to a single cancer center. That’s why the numbers are not surprising:

• Nigeria ranks 5th worldwide in the number of deaths from cervical cancer, a disease that is almost entirely preventable with regular Pap tests.
• Between 80% and 85% of Nigerian women with breast cancer get their diagnosis after the disease has progressed to stage III, at which point it is difficult to treat successfully.
• Nigerian men are 3.5 times more likely than African-American men to die of prostate cancer.

Chukwumere “Chumy” Nwogu, MD, PhD, is chiseling away at those somber statistics armed with a three-pronged strategy focusing on research, prevention, and advanced treatment. “Part of the mission is to impact cancer control globally,” explains the Nigerian-born surgeon.

Dr. Nwogu is a cancer epidemiologist as well as a specialist in minimally invasive thoracic (chest) surgery — which requires much smaller incisions than traditional “open” surgery and results in less pain and a faster return to normal activities — and in treating lung and esophageal cancer with photodynamic therapy (PDT), a treatment developed at Roswell Park.

Dr. Nwogu’s hopes for improving cancer care in Nigeria are picking up speed with the opening of the Lakeshore Cancer Center in Lagos — a bright, modern facility equipped to provide diagnostic imaging services, mammography, pap smear & colposcopy, lab services, tissue biopsy, outpatient surgery, chemotherapy, palliative care, public education, and the coordination of additional medical services both within and outside of Nigeria.

The new cancer center is not the end goal — it’s the launching pad for all the work that lies ahead. Already Dr. Nwogu is thinking of ways to reach Nigerians who don’t live close enough to take advantage of the center’s services. One idea: a van equipped to provide screening mammograms in communities all over the country. If breast cancer is detected early, he notes, “you can cure the person with surgery. The surgery is available in Nigeria, but if detection doesn’t take place until the cancer has spread, treatment is a lot more challenging.” He hopes to recruit industry partners to fund the mobile mammography project.

Dr. Nwogu and colleagues are also looking to improve cancer care in other regions of Africa. In June of 2014, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) awarded a grant of nearly $200,000 to Dr. Nwogu and Alex A. Adjei, MD, PhD, Roswell Park’s Senior Vice President of Clinical Research and the Katherine Anne Gioia Chair of Medicine, to promote and support cancer research and treatment through partnerships with Lagos State University in Nigeria and Noguchi Memorial Institute in Dr. Adjei’s home country of Ghana.

U.S. cancer centers can benefit from these programs, too: breast cancer and prostate cancer appear to behave in similar ways in both Africans and African-Americans, and it’s hoped that information gained through collaborative research will lead to more effective treatments for those diseases.

“We’re at the very beginning right now,” acknowledges Dr. Nwogu. “There’s tremendous need, but there are also great opportunities. I look forward to expanding the relationship between Lakeshore Cancer Center and Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center, which has the potential to make a great impact throughout West Africa.”