Cancer Incidence in South East of Iran: Results of a Population-Based Cancer Registry

Introduction: suitable information of different cancers in special geographic areas can help define medical programs for treatment and screening of high-risk groups. Aims and Methods: The aim of this study is to present the frequency of cancers in Hospitals of the Zahedan. A comprehensive search was undertaken to survey and register all cases of cancer r during a 4-year (2003-2006) period among the indigenous population of Zahedan. Diagnosis of cancer was based on histopathology, clinical or radiological findings, and death certificates. From these analyses, the general and specific frequencies by age and by sex were obtained for the different group of neoplasms. Also, the frequency of the stage of the disease that had been diagnosed in cases with solid tumors was obtained. Results: A total of 1452 patients with cancers (mean age 51‡19 years) were found during the study. Of these, 841(58%) were in males. Gastrointestinal cancers were the most common tumors with a frequency 30%. In upper gastrointestinal cancers, Esophagus cancer was the most common (26 %), followed by stomach malignancies (22%), colorectal (20 %), liver (15 %). Hematological malignancies were second common malignancies in Zahedan with a fre-quency of 20%. In Hematological Malignancies ALL was the most common (28.44%). The top 5 cancers in males (excluding skin cancer) according to the calculated ASR( age standard rate ) were esophagus, stomach, leukemia, colon and rectum and bladder; in females, these were stomach, esophagus, breast, colon and rectum and lung and bronchus. In the child population the most common tumors were Acute lymphocytic leukemia, lymphoma and bone. Conclusion: Hematological malignancies alone constitutes one-fifth of all cancers in Zahedan, with the highest ASR incidence rate reported from Iran up to now, and one of the highest in the world. The principals cancers in the patients treated in Hospitals of Zahedan were esophagus cancer, gastric cancer, Leukemia, and breast cancer consistent with those re-ported by other place. In this population Leukemia had a very high incidence. This fact will need to be confirmed by a longer period of observation, but even now the total number of cases (particularly Leukemia) is high when compared with the data of other Leukemia regis-tries which give rates for longer period and for similar or larger population.