Introduction

The Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital and Research Center (SKMCH & RC) is the only charity hospital in Asia, which is offering free of charge medical services to the majority of cancer patients registered at theHospital since its inception in December 1994. It is located in the locality of Johar Town in the city of Lahore, which is the capital of Punjab, the most heavily populated province of the four provinces of Pakistan.

The computerized Cancer Registry at SKMCH & RC is a data system designed for collection, management, and analysis of detailed data on patients registered at the Hospital. The Cancer Registry at the Hospital has been functioning since the inauguration of the Hospital in December 1994. Every year the Registry generates cancer statistics according to sex, age, topography, and morphology, etc. From December 1994 till December 2004, the International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision, Clinical Modification, was used to code the diseases. On January 2004, the Registry implemented the International Classification of Disease for Oncology, Third Edition (ICD-O-3) to code the cancer cases.

In Sep. 2005, the International Association of Cancer Registries (IACR) conferred an Associate Member status on the Shaukat Khanum Registry. This was the third Registry in Pakistan, after the Karachi Cancer Registry and the Aga Khan University pathology-based registry, to be awarded the IACR membership.

Results

During the last eleven years, a total of 27,847 neoplasm cases were registered at SKMCH & RC (of which 789 were benign and 27,058 malignant). The distributions seen amongst males and females were (48.58% and 51.27%, respectively). About 88.2% tumors were found in adults whereas 11.8% were diagnosed in children. The top three malignancies amongst adult females were cancer of the breast, ovary & uterine adnexa, and oral cavity, whereas in adult males, they were non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, oral cavity and cancers of trachea, bronchus & lungs.

In adults, regardless of gender, malignant neoplasm of the breast, oral cavity, and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, were established as the leading malignancies, whereas, in children, the three commonest malignancies were categorized as acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), Hodgkin’s disease, and non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma (NHL).

In the year 2005, a total of 3,017 malignancies were added to the Registry database. The top three malignancies in all age group and both sexes combined were breast cancer, NHL, oral cavity cancer. In adult males, NHL, oral cavity and liver were the top malignancies whereas in adult females, breast, oral cavity and NHL were the leading malignancies. In children, ALL, Hodgkin’s disease, and NHL were the top three cancers.

The Registry uses the American Joint Committee on Cancer (AJCC) staging manual for staging all available cancer sites. TNM categorizes cancers in stages 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, and also as unstageable. Amongst 3,017 malignant cases, 0.9% cases were staged into stage 0, 13% in stage I, 24% in stage II, 21% in stage III, and 21% in stage IV. In 4.5% of the patients, no AJCC stage was defined and 16% of the cases were unstageable.

The details of these reports can be viewed by using the following links:

	Cancer Registry Report (Dec. 1994 – Dec. 2005)
	Annual Cancer Registry Report (2005)
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Suggested Citation - Cancer Registry and Clinical Data Management (CRCDM), Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital and Research Center (SKMCH & RC) - (www.shaukatkhanum.org.pk). Report based on cancer cases registered at SKMCH & RC from Dec. 1994-Dec. 2005 and in 2005. Released April, 2006.