Introduction: Digestive cancers are becoming a global public health problem. Their management remains multidisciplinary, with surgery remaining the cornerstone. Our goal is to study the diagnostic approaches and treatment modalities for digestive cancers in rural areas with limited resources.

Patients and Methods: We conducted a retrospective, descriptive, and cross-sectional study over a period of one year, from January 1, 2023, to December 31, 2023, including all patients aged at least 15 years old, treated in the general surgery department of Cheikh Ahmadoul Khadim Hospital in Touba, located 200 km from the capital of Senegal (Dakar).

Results: We collected 85 files with a mean age of 48.5 years and a median age of 43 years. Between 46 and 60 years old was the age group with a majority of 30.6%. There was a sex ratio of 1.36. Esophageal cancer was the most prevalent cancer in 22 cases (22.5%), followed by stomach cancer in 19 cases (22.4%), and pancreatic cancer in 16 cases (18.8%). It took on average 2.2 months to go from surgery to diagnosis. In 50.6% of cases, surgery was curative. In 81 cases (98.8%), laparotomy was the surgical approach. 18 cases (22.8%) had feeding gastrostomy as the most commonly performed procedure, while 16 cases (20.3%) had gastrectomy and 11 cases (13.9%) had double biliary-digestive diversion. The average survival time was 11 months. The rate of postoperative morbidity after surgery was 9.4% (n=8) and the rate of postoperative mortality was 8.2% (n=7).

Conclusion: The palliative surgery rate in rural areas is still high, partly because of delayed treatment.