Systematic Reviews
Copyright ©The Author(s) 2021. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Gastrointest Oncol. Nov 15, 2021; 13(11): 1791-1798
Published online Nov 15, 2021. doi: 10.4251/wjgo.v13.i11.1791
Colorectal cancer in Arab world: A systematic review
Nahed A Makhlouf, Muhammad Abdel-Gawad, Aya M Mahros, Sameh A Lashen, Mariam Zaghloul, Ahmed Eliwa, Eman E Elshemy, Zainab Ali-Eldin, Doaa Abdeltawab, Fathiya El-Raey, Dalia Omran, Marwa Khalaf, Nancy Fanous, Ahmed Shawkat Abdelmohsen, Ahmed Abu-Elfatth, Mohamed Abdelghani, Mahmoud Farouk, Mohamed Abdelaziz, Mohamed Alboraie
Nahed A Makhlouf, Doaa Abdeltawab, Ahmed Shawkat Abdelmohsen, Ahmed Abu-Elfatth, Mohamed Abdelghani, Mahmoud Farouk, Department of Tropical Medicine and Gastroenterology, Faculty of Medicine, Assiut University, Assiut 71515, Egypt
Muhammad Abdel-Gawad, Department of Hepatology, Gastroenterology, and Infectious Diseases, Al-Azhar University, Assiut 71631, Egypt
Aya M Mahros, Mariam Zaghloul, Department of Hepatology, Gastroenterology and Infectious Diseases, Kafrelsheikh University, Kafrelsheikh 33656, Egypt
Sameh A Lashen, Department of Internal Medicine, Alexandria University, Alexandria 21521, Egypt
Ahmed Eliwa, Mohamed Alboraie, Department of Internal Medicine, Al-Azhar University, Cairo 11884, Egypt
Eman E Elshemy, Department of Hepatogastroenterology and Infectious Diseases, Al-Azhar University, Cairo 11651, Egypt
Zainab Ali-Eldin, Department of Internal Medicine, Ain Shams University, Cairo 11646, Egypt
Fathiya El-Raey, Department of Hepatogastroenterology and Infectious diseases, Faculty of Medicine, Al-Azhar University, Damietta 34511, Cairo, Egypt
Dalia Omran, Department of Endemic Medicine, Cairo University, Cairo 12613, Egypt
Marwa Khalaf, Department of Tropical Medicine and Gastroenterology, Assiut Liver Center, Assiut 71511, Egypt
Nancy Fanous, Department of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Endoscopy, Police Authority Hospital, Cairo 12654, Egypt
Mohamed Abdelaziz, Department of Clinical Oncology and Nuclear Medicine, Al-Azhar University, Cairo 11824, Egypt
Author contributions: Makhlouf NA designed the research; Khalaf M did the registration on PROSPERO; Abdel-Gawad M performed the literature search and the statistical analysis; Mahros AM, Lashen SA, Eliwa A, Elshemy EE, Ali-Eldin Z, Abdeltawab D, El-Raey F, Omran D, Fanous N, Khalaf M, Abu-Elfatth A, Abdelghani M, Farouk M, Abdelmohsen AS and Abdelaziz M performed title, abstract screening, full article screening and data extraction; Makhlouf NA and Abdel-Gawad M analyzed the data; Makhlouf NA, Alboraie M, Abdel-Gawad M and Zaghloul M wrote the paper; Makhlouf NA and Alboraie M supervised the paper; all authors read and approved the final manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors declare that they have no competing interests.
PRISMA 2009 Checklist statement: The authors have read the PRISMA 2009 Checklist, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the PRISMA 2009 Checklist.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Nahed A Makhlouf, MD, Professor, Department of Tropical Medicine and Gastroenterology, Faculty of Medicine, Assiut University, Assiut University Street, Assiut 71515, Egypt. nahedmak@yahoo.com
Received: February 21, 2021
Peer-review started: February 21, 2021
First decision: July 29, 2021
Revised: August 8, 2021
Accepted: September 16, 2021
Article in press: September 16, 2021
Published online: November 15, 2021
Abstract
BACKGROUND

The incidence of colorectal cancer (CRC) is increasing among young individuals in the Arab world as well as in other regions of the world.

AIM

To explore the incidence and prevalence of CRC in the Arab world.

METHODS

The PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, EBSCO and Wiley databases were searched to retrieve relevant articles irrespective of the language or the publication year. The search terms were “("colon OR rectum OR sigmoid OR rectal OR colonic OR colorectal") AND ("cancer OR malignancy OR malignant OR neoplasm") AND ("Jordan" OR "United Arab Emirates" OR "Bahrain" OR "Tunisia" OR "Algeria" OR "Djibouti" OR "Saudi Arabia" OR "Sudan" OR "Syria" OR "Somalia" OR "Iraq" OR "Oman" OR "Palestine" OR "Qatar" OR "Comoros" OR "Kuwait" OR "Lebanon" OR "Libya" OR "Egypt" OR "Morocco" OR "Mauritania" OR "Yemen"). Reviews, meta-analyses, and articles containing nonoriginal data were excluded. Retrieved articles were screened, and relevant data were extracted. Descriptive statistics were used for data analysis.

RESULTS

Nine studies were included. Five of the studies provided information regarding the prevalence of CRC. The prevalence of CRC was 0.72% in Saudi Arabia and 0.78% in the United Arab Emirate, while in Egypt, it ranged from 0.4% to 14%. Four studies showed information regarding the incidence. The annual incidence rate of CRC in Qatar was 7.5/100000/year. In Egypt, the crude incidence rate (CIR) in males was 3.1 for colon cancer and 1 for rectal cancer, while in females, it was 2.3 for colon cancer and 0.8 for rectal cancer. The age-standardized rate for CRC incidence in 2003 was 36.90 for males, 26.50 for females, and 30.49 for both sexes in Saudi Arabia. In 2016, the CIRs in Saudi Arabia were 3.6 and 2.1 in females for colon cancer and rectal cancer, respectively, while in males, it was 3.3 and 2.8 for colon cancer and rectal cancer, respectively. One study in Egypt revealed that 25% of CRC cases occurred among individuals younger than 40 years old.

CONCLUSION

There is a considerable prevalence of CRC in some Arab countries. More studies are needed to explore the incidence and prevalence of CRC in the rest of the Arab world.

Keywords: Colorectal cancer, Incidence, Prevalence, Arab world

Core Tip: Colorectal cancer (CRC) represents the third most common cause of cancer globally. Although only a few studies have addressed the prevalence and incidence of CRC in the Arab world, this systematic review found that there is a considerable prevalence of CRC in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirate. More studies are needed to explore the incidence and prevalence of CRC in the rest of the Arab world.