Changing Trends of Adult Lymphoma in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia - Comparison of Data Sources

Background: Lymphoma is one of the most common malignancies affecting the young Saudi population.This disease has diversified pathologies and clinical stages that necessitate well optimized clinical management.Regular updates of epidemiological behavior of lymphoma from various parts of the world are available butstudies from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) in this field are not consistent.
Objectives: The aim of thisstudy was to investigate the current trends in presentation and distribution of lymphoma with special referenceto incidence and mortality, gender, age, histopathological subtypes, and clinical stages at King Faisal SpecialistHospital and Research Centre (KFSH&RC). Materials and
Methods: Our study included lymphoma data fromSaudi Cancer Registry, and relative comparison against KFSH&RC tumor registry data, Gulf country dataand International Agency for Research on Cancer data.
Results: Common tumors in the West (lung, colon, andprostate) were found to be much less frequent in KSA while leukemia, lymphoma and thyroid cancers weremore common. Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma (NHL) ranked 3rd most common cancer with age-adjusted incidenceof 6/100,000. Estimated age adjusted mortality was 4/100,000 in KSA. There was a peak rise in incidence oflymphoma in 1997-2007. Most common NHL was diffuse large B cell lymphoma at KFSH&RC. A total of 434cases were diagnosed in 5 years with 55% of them at advanced stage and 35% demonstrating bulky diseaseand high risk. KFSH&RC registered 35% of Hodgkins and 21% of total NHL identified in entire Saudi CancerRegistry, 2009.
Conclusions: Results of this study are very unique, and reveal diverse trends. The findings providevaluable insights in the understanding of current epidemiological features of lymphoma in this part of the world.