Surgery and Orthopedics Poster Session

Myles Clough
cloughs@wkpowerlink.com

>Many thanks for your advice.
>In Table II, we put only the most frequently tumors ( in number), in Table III put all cases clasified according ICD.O list. We do not have real data about incidence of cancer.

Thank you for the explanation.
Out of interest I did a PubMed search on "Incidence of Colorectal Cancer" I found Lin et al (1998) Dis Colon Rectum 1998 Apr;41(4):428-33 The abstract stated that the concurrent incidence of colorectal cancer in the general population is 2.4%. Can you estimate incidence in your population from your registry figures? In other words do you register all the cases which occur in an area with a known population? Or perhaps do people get referred in to your hospitals from all over Spain thereby skewing your sampling?
There is certainly a huge literature on cancer incidence based on cancer registries. A search on "Cancer Registry" produced 7146 references including the one abstracted below. I find the differences in pattern between your cases and the Lebanese experience most interesting and thought provoking. The design of the two studies seemed quite similar. But there would seem to be major differences in the pattern of cancer prevalence between the two countries. 12.6% of your cases were colorectal cancer (2714/21496)
I am not trying to detract from your most interesting and worthwhile study but am trying to stress the new opportunities for cross-correlation of information that the Internet provides. It's now so much easier.
J Med Liban 1998 Jan-Feb;46(1):4-11
Cancer in Lebanon: analysis of 10,220 cases from the American University
of Beirut Medical Center.
el Saghir NS, Adib S, Mufarrij A, Kahwaji S, Taher A, Issa P, Shamseddine AI
Department of Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, American University of Beirut, Lebanon.
Cancers seen and recorded between 1983 and 1995 in the Hospital Tumor Registry at the American University of Beirut
Medical Center (AUBMC), one of the largest primary and tertiary care hospitals in Lebanon, were retrospectively reviewed
and analyzed. There was a total of 10,220 cases, excluding 916 skin cancers other than skin melanoma, averaging 786 cases
per year. There were 5086 cancer cases in males with the five most common cancers being: lung cancer (915 cases: 17.9%)
followed by bladder cancer (503 cases: 9.8%), larynx (438 cases: 8.6%), lymphoma (393 cases: 7.7%) and leukemia (336
cases: 6.6%). As for female cancer cases, a total of 5134 cases were observed with the five most common cancers being:
breast cancer (1821 cases), followed by cervical cancer (535 cases), colo-rectal cancer (256 cases: 4.9%), lymphoma (232
cases: 4.5%), and brain cancer (213 cases: 4.1%).