Frequency and distribution of 22,836 adult cancer cases referred to King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Centre.

Since late 1975, the King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Centre (KFSH&RC), a tertiary-care hospital in Saudi Arabia, has continuously collected data on its experience in oncology. With 22,836 cancer cases as a base, covering the years between 1976 and 1993, it is intended to present the hospital data obtained in this referral center as a prelude to the release of statistics from the Saudi Arabia National Cancer Registry (NCR) established in 1994. It will be interesting to see whether the data collected in the largest cancer referral center in the Kingdom will be comparable with national data when this becomes available. Our intent is to identify trends of referral and any possible bias in the data when compared to the NCR statistics of 1994.