Geospatial Analyses of Thyroid Cancer Incidence in Kelantan, Malaysia

Abstract

Geographical Information System (GIS) has been widely used in evaluating health data. GIS-based disease mapping can act as a tool for an effective form of communication in public health and planning disease surveillance strategies. Yet, there is limited data on spatial distribution of cancer in Malaysia. In the present study, GIS was employed to map the thyroid cancer incidences, analyse the spatial distribution of the cases and assess their geographical accessibility to public hospitals. Registries of patients diagnosed with thyroid carcinoma from the year of 2013 to 2020 were retrieved and information regarding the year of diagnosis, age, gender, residential addresses and histological subtypes were obtained. The coordinates of residential addresses and public hospitals were obtained using Global Positioning System (GPS) and the radius of public hospitals were set within and beyond 10 km. Then, all data were inserted into ArcGIS 10.2 software and spatial analysis was performed.  A total of 90 cases with thyroid carcinomas were recorded and mapped. The spatial distribution of thyroid cancer cases in Kelantan represented a clustered pattern (NNR: 0.549377, p-value <0.001) with most cases concentrated at northern part of Kelantan. Buffer analysis revealed that most of the cases (60%, 54 cases) were located within 10 km radius from public hospitals and the remaining 36 cases (40%) were situated beyond 10 km radius from public hospitals. In conclusion, thyroid cancer cases in Hospital USM were clustered with most cases concentrated at the northern part of the state. Majority of the cases have a good geographical access to public hospitals. These study findings provide useful information for health practitioners in planning public health intervention by targeting locations with poor geographical access to health facilities in order to improve overall health population in Kelantan.