JEDDAH, 13 March 2004 — Cancer is growing in the Kingdom at the rate of 7,500 cases a year and a senior health official estimates there are 25,000 sufferers.

“Statistics have confirmed that 7,500 new cancer cases are detected in the Kingdom every year. We don’t know how many of them die,” says Dr. Hadeer Mustafa Mir, medical director of King Abdul Aziz Hospital.

Mir, who is head of the hospital’s tumor center, said cancer cases in Saudi Arabia were at “reasonable” rates compared to other countries.

Dr. Hussein Al-Jazaery, the Middle East director of the World Health Organization, put the number of cancer cases in Saudi Arabia at 24,000 to 25,000.

Reports show that there are more than 50 million cancer sufferers around the world and the disease is expected to grow at the rate of 10 million annually by 2014.

“Treating cancer is difficult not because of the cost but because of the lack of equipment and facilities,” Okaz Arabic daily quoted Mir as saying. Breast cancer is the most prevalent form of cancer in the Kingdom. Many men divorce women who develop the disease.

The number of cases in Saudi Arabia is considerably lower than Western countries — 21 cases for every 100,000 females compared to 90 to 100 cases for every 100,000 females in the US and Scandinavia — but unlike in Western countries most of the cases here are discovered in the late stages, which means a lower rate of recovery.

“Women here might not feel comfortable going for a checkup because of local customs or lack of awareness, but it is necessary to have periodic examinations because cancer is curable if diagnosed early,” says Dr. Mahmoud Al-Ahwal, consultant and associate professor of internal medicine and oncology at King Abdul Aziz University Hospital in Jeddah.

According to Saleh ibn Abdul Aziz Al-Sheikh, the executive director of King Fahd National Center for Children’s Cancer and Research, 400 cancer cases are reported among children under 14 in the Kingdom every year. “Genetic and environmental factors increase the risks,” Al-Sheikh said.

Common childhood cancers include Wilms’ tumor, leukemia, neuroblastoma, retinoblastoma, lymphoma and brain tumors. Al-Sheikh estimated the cost of treatment at SR350,000 to SR1 million at the center.