Epidemiology of gastric cancer in Saudi Arabia from 2004 to 2017

Gastric cancer (GC), a prevalent disease which globally affects both men and women, was predicted by the International Agency for Research on Cancer in 2020 to have an age-standardized incidence rate (ASIR) in Saudi Arabia of 2.7 per 100,000 individuals for all ages and sexes (ranked 15th), and an age-standardized mortality rate of 2.1 per 100,000 individuals (ranked 12th). The present retrospective study aimed to investigate the prevalence of GC across all administrative regions in Saudi Arabia. Specifically, the present study sought to examine the incidence of diagnosed cases, age-specific incidence rates, crude incidence rates (CIRs) and ASIRs adjusted for age, year and region. To meet this aim, this retrospective descriptive epidemiological analysis was conducted on all cases of GC recorded in the Saudi Cancer Registry (SCR) between January 2004 and December 2017. The collected data were subjected to a range of statistical analyses (using SPSS version 20.0), including descriptive analyses, independent sample t-tests, the Kruskal-Wallis test and sex ratio analysis. In the SCR, a total of 4,066 cases of GC were recorded between 2004 and 2017. The regions with the highest overall ASIRs of GC for both men and women were found to be Riyadh, Najran and the Eastern Region, with rates ranging from 2.2-4.0 per 100,000 individuals. Conversely, Jazan had the lowest ASIRs, with rates of 1.5 and 0.5 per 100,000 individuals for men and women, respectively. The overall ASIRs of GC were found to be significantly higher in men compared with women, with a ratio of 2.8 per 100,000 individuals (P<0.05). In conclusion, the present study has revealed that, between 2004 and 2017, there was a slight decrease in the values of both CIR and ASIR of GC in Saudi Arabia.