Butaro Cancer Center of Excellence
Rwanda's first cancer centre, opened in 2012 in a rural district hospital by Partners In Health and the Rwandan government, proving that complex cancer care can be delivered in low-income settings.
The Butaro Cancer Center of Excellence opened in 2012 at Butaro District Hospital in Rwanda's Northern Province, built by Partners In Health with the Rwanda Ministry of Health and support from Dana-Farber/Brigham and Women's Cancer Center and the Jeff Gordon Children's Foundation, as the country's first facility dedicated to cancer care. It provides pathology, chemotherapy, surgery and palliative care to Rwandan and regional patients, with radiotherapy referred to Kigali since the Rwanda Cancer Centre opened there, and it has published outcomes for Wilms tumour, Burkitt and Hodgkin lymphoma, breast and cervical cancer showing that protocol-based treatment with task-shifting and telepathology is feasible in a rural low-income setting. Butaro also hosts the University of Global Health Equity campus and trains oncology nurses and clinicians for East Africa.
- Rural cancer care delivery
- Paediatric and lymphoma outcomes
- Telepathology and task-shifting
- University of Global Health Equity