Malignant neoplasms in Saudi Arabia.

In a sample of 1000 consecutive malignant neoplasms in Saudis resident in the Western Region of Saudi Arabia, malignant lymphoma was the commonest of the life-threatening malignancies. The differences between malignant lymphoma in this sample and Western series include the greater frequency of lymphoma; the tendency for reticulum cell and poorly differentiated lymphomas to present as abdominal lesions; the earlier peak of prevalence of Hodgkin's disease, and the dissimilar proportions of its subtypes. The distribution of cancers in the gastrointestinal tract in our sample is almost the reverse of that encountered in the West in that cancer of the mouth and esophagus were more common than cancer of the lower intestinal tract. Lung cancer was relatively uncommon. The smoking habit is not so prevalent in Saudi Arabia as in the West and there is a need to maintain this situation by discouraging smoking. Cancer of the breast was by far the commonest major malignancy in the female, although most Saudi women have their first child early in their reproductive life. Skin cancers proved to be the most prevalent malignancy, and of these squamous cell carcinoma was the most common. The biases that affect studies such as ours in Saudi Arabia are stressed.