Progress and remaining challenges for cancer control in the Gulf Cooperation Council.

Cancer is a growing global health-care problem, especially in under-resourced countries. Cancer prevalence in Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries is projected to increase, potentially leading to a major burden on the economy. Policy makers in GCC countries have invested in the development of National Cancer Control Strategies to address the current and future burden of cancer through different initiatives and policies for prevention, early detection, and management of cancer. These strategies include capacity building, health education, and global partnerships to strengthen health-care systems. The aim of this Review is to highlight the status of cancer control programmes in GCC countries, describe what has been achieved to date, and identify the gaps, with recommendations on how to lower the burden of cancer in the Gulf region in the future. TRANSLATION: For the Arabic translation of the abstract see Supplementary Materials section.

Incidence and Trends of Liver Cancer in the Gulf Cooperation Council States, 1998-2012.

BACKGROUND: Liver cancer has been identified as the fifth most common cancer in males and ninth in females in the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) States. Taking into consideration that GCC states have comparable cultural and demographic backgrounds, this study aimed to examine the trends and patterns of liver cancer cases in the GCC states and to compare these with other regions. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The data were obtained from the Gulf Centre for Cancer Control and Prevention, which has maintained its database for GCC states since 1998. In total, 8,012 primary liver cancer cases were recorded for 15 years, from 1998 to 2012. Demographic information and cancer data for all cases were reviewed and analyzed, including sex, age, nationality, histological type and staging. Trends in the frequency of cases, agespecific incidence and stage at diagnosis were presented and compared for three periods (1998-2002, 2003-2007 and 2008-2012) for the six GCC countries. RESULTS: The trends show a balanced decrease in the number of liver cancer cases between 1998 and 2012. Over one-third of patients who presented were diagnosed with advanced liver cancer; however, 45.4% of the cases were left unknown. CONCLUSION: While the Gulf countries have achieved some success in reducing the number of liver cancer cases, there is a clear defect in the documentation of the cancer staging in some countries, and more effort is needed to improve early diagnosis.

Tackling cancer control in the Gulf Cooperation Council Countries.

Cancer is a major health problem in both high income and middle-to-low income countries, and is the second leading cause of death in the world. Although more than a third of cancer could be prevented and another third could be cured if diagnosed early, it remains a huge challenge to health-care systems worldwide. Despite substantial improvements in health services some of the countries in the Gulf region, the burden of non-communicable diseases is a major threat, primarily due to the rapid socioeconomic shifts that have led to unfavourable changes in lifestyle such as increased tobacco use, decreased physical activity, and consumption of unhealthy food. In the Gulf Cooperation Council states (United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Qatar, and Kuwait), advanced breast cancer, colorectal cancer, leukaemia, thyroid cancer, and non-Hodgkin lymphomas are the most common cancers affecting younger populations compared with other countries. By contrast with cancer prevalence in developed countries, prostate, lung, and cervical cancers are not among the most common cancers in the Gulf region. In view of the increased cost of cancer management worldwide, integrated approaches between primary, secondary, and tertiary health-care systems with special focus on prevention and early detection is an essential step in the countries' efforts in the fight against cancer.

Genetic diagnosis in consanguineous families with kidney disease by homozygosity mapping coupled with whole-exome sequencing.

BACKGROUND: Accurate diagnosis of the primary cause of an individual's kidney disease can be essential for proper management. Some kidney diseases have overlapping histopathologic features despite being caused by defects in different genes. In this report, we describe 2 consanguineous Saudi Arabian families in which individuals presented with kidney failure and mixed clinical and histologic features initially believed to be consistent with focal segmental glomerulosclerosis. STUDY DESIGN: Case series. SETTING & PARTICIPANTS: We studied members of 2 apparently unrelated families from Saudi Arabia with kidney disease. MEASUREMENTS: Whole-genome single-nucleotide polymorphism analysis followed by targeted isolation and sequencing of exons using genomic DNA samples from affected members of these families, followed by additional focused genotyping and sequence analysis. RESULTS: The 2 apparently unrelated families shared a region of homozygosity on chromosome 2q13. Exome sequence from affected individuals lacked sequence reads from the NPHP1 gene, which is located within this homozygous region. Additional polymerase chain reaction-based genotyping confirmed that affected individuals had NPHP1 deletions, rather than defects in a known focal segmental glomerulosclerosis-associated gene. LIMITATIONS: The methods used here may not result in a clear genetic diagnosis in many cases of apparent familial kidney disease. CONCLUSIONS: This analysis shows the power of new high-throughput genotyping and sequencing technologies to aid in the rapid genetic diagnosis of individuals with an inherited form of kidney disease. We believe it is likely that such tools may become useful clinical genetic tools and alter the manner in which diagnoses are made in nephrology.