Aizat Seidakhmetova

Background: Gastrointestinal bleeding (GIB), particularly upper gastrointestinal bleeding (UGIB), requires rapid coordination between emergency medical services (EMS) and hospital teams, yet evidence on how service organization affects timeliness and practice is limited in Kazakhstan. Aim: To evaluate the organization of GIB care in Almaty region, with emphasis on clinician knowledge and practice, EMS performance, and organizational features of hospital care. Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional survey between March and October 2024 involving two broad respondent groups and three distinct samples: a hospital-based group comprising 99 inpatient clinicians and 99 hospital representatives, and an EMS group comprising 120 personnel. The three samples completed different questionnaires and were analyzed separately. Descriptive analyses, chi-square or Fisher's exact tests, and exploratory Spearman correlations were used. Results: Inpatient clinicians showed near-universal agreement with guideline-based UGIB management principles, but self-reported adherence was inconsistent. Only 1.0% reported always using validated risk scores, and 99.0% reported only sometimes protecting the airway before endoscopy in patients with active hematemesis and altered mental status. In unadjusted respondent-level analyses, clinicians with ≥5 years of experience more frequently reported adequate training and perceived risk scores as useful (both p < 0.001). In the EMS group, all six respondents reporting arrival within 10 min were in the ≥16-team category (6/58, 10.3%; Fisher's exact p = 0.047). Reported ambulance-team availability showed a modest inverse correlation with continuous arrival time ( ρ =−0.277, p = 0.002), while completion of selected examinations and vital-sign assessments differed across team-availability categories (all p < 0.001). All hospital representatives reported 24-hour endoscopist availability, but important elements of written protocol content were reported less consistently. Conclusions: UGIB care in the Almaty region showed consistently described structural endoscopy availability but incomplete protocol content, together with selected inpatient-practice and prehospital differences. The EMS findings were exploratory and require confirmation using operational and patient-level data.

Background and Objectives: Breast cancer is the leading oncological diagnosis among women in Kazakhstan, yet a substantial proportion of cases are still detected beyond the earliest stages, particularly in peripheral regions such as Aktobe. Despite a national mammography screening programme covering women aged 40–70 years since 2018, structural differences in access to early diagnosis—related to geography, socioeconomic circumstances, and the diagnostic pathway—may compromise outcomes. We aimed to identify factors independently associated with early-stage presentation and to characterise the temporal pattern of early-stage presentation without assuming a monotonic trend. Methods and Materials: We conducted a retrospective, population-based analytical study of all confirmed breast cancer cases (ICD-10 C50) registered in the Aktobe regional cancer registry and diagnosed between 1 January 2015 and 31 December 2025 (n = 2232). The outcome was early-stage presentation, defined literally as Stages I–IIa at diagnosis, with Stages IIb–IV as the comparator; this is a stage-at-presentation classification and is not intended to indicate surgical operability or treatment sequence. Multivariable logistic regression estimated adjusted odds ratios (aORs). Two models were used: Model A included age, sex, residence, administrative nationality, employment/social status, and calendar year; Model B additionally included the diagnostic pathway, which may lie on the causal pathway between structural determinants and stage. Calendar year was modelled as a categorical variable, and a complementary phase-based model (2015–2017, 2018–2019, 2020–2022, 2023–2025) was fitted. A residence-by-year interaction; a multinomial sensitivity analysis separating Stages IIb, III, and IV; discrimination (AUC, Brier score); and calibration (Hosmer–Lemeshow test, calibration plot) were also assessed. Results: Of 2232 patients (99.1% female; mean age 57.0 ± 12.5 years), 1323 (59.3%) presented at Stages I–IIa. In Model A, rural residence (aOR 0.77, 95% CI 0.64–0.93; p = 0.006), unemployment relative to employment (aOR 0.69, 95% CI 0.52–0.90; p = 0.007), Russian administrative nationality (aOR 0.64, 95% CI 0.50–0.82; p < 0.001), and other non-Kazakh nationalities (aOR 0.73, 95% CI 0.58–0.94; p = 0.012) were independently associated with lower odds of Stage I–IIa presentation. In Model B, patient-initiated (self-referral) presentation was associated with lower odds relative to clinical examination room detection (aOR 0.46, 95% CI 0.30–0.72; p < 0.001), whereas organised screening was not significantly associated (aOR 1.52, 95% CI 0.95–2.43; p = 0.082). The calendar-year pattern was clearly non-linear (categorical vs. linear year: likelihood-ratio χ² = 76.1, df = 9, p < 0.001): odds of Stage I–IIa presentation peaked in 2018 (aOR 2.49, 95% CI 1.57–3.93 vs. 2015), were lowest in 2022 (aOR 0.64, 95% CI 0.42–0.97), and partially recovered thereafter. In the phase-based model (reference 2015–2017), the aORs were 1.62 (95% CI 1.22–2.15) for 2018–2019, 0.54 (95% CI 0.41–0.69) for 2020–2022, and 0.62 (95% CI 0.46–0.84) for 2023–2025. Model discrimination was limited (AUC 0.648, 95% CI 0.625–0.671; Brier score 0.226) with acceptable calibration (Hosmer–Lemeshow χ² = 8.38, df = 8, p = 0.40). Conclusions: In this registry-based cohort, rural residence, unemployment, non-Kazakh administrative nationality, and patient-initiated presentation were independently associated with lower odds of early-stage breast cancer presentation. The temporal pattern was non-monotonic, with the highest odds around the 2018 screening expansion, a marked reduction during 2020–2022, and only partial recovery thereafter. These are observational associations rather than causal or programme-evaluation findings; they should be interpreted as hypothesis-generating and require confirmation with screening-process, service-capacity, and patient-level access data.