Modelling and forecasting lung cancer incidence and mortality in Saudi Arabia

The aim of this research is to forecast the rates of lung cancer incidence and mortality inthe Kingdom of Saudi Arabia using data on lung cancer diagnosis between 1994 and 2009.Lung cancer data, including incidence and mortality, were obtained from Saudi CancerRegistry at the Ministry of Health. The Central Department of Statistics & Information atthe Ministry of Planning also provided data on person characteristics, such as age, genderand ethnicity. These data serve as a basis for modelling the effect of gender, ethnicity, andage at diagnosis, and region on incidence and mortality. For comparison of incidence andmortality rates between region and over time, standardised rates are used in this thesis,based on a hypothetical standard population, in our case the world standard population.We use several modelling approaches. The first part of the analysis uses two approaches.The first approach concentrates on Box–Jenkins methodology, and the second approachuses dynamic regression modelling including both finite and infinite lag models to forecastlung cancer incident cases. The second part focuses on age-period-cohort modellingincluding both incidence and mortality rates of lung cancer, and using two methodologicalapproaches, namely spline functions and Bayesian dynamic models, for the incidence andmortality respectively. Lung cancer is rarely diagnosed in people under 30 years of age inSaudi Arabia, but incidence rises sharply thereafter peaking in the 65-69 years age group.Males have a 79% greater incidence rate of lung cancer than females across the entiredataset when adjusting for the other effects. The average age standardised incidence rate in2009 was 3.8 per 100,000 population whereas the average age standardised mortality ratewas 1.9 per 100,000 population in the same year. The highest number of cases of lungcancer were reported in the Western region at 187 and in Riyadh at 144 cases and themajority of cases were diagnosed in winter (December - March). The forecast incidencerate of lung cancer is expected to decrease in men but to increase in women over the nextten years. This is perhaps due to the increase in the proportion of female smokers. Themale age standardised rate of lung cancer incidence is forecast to fall from 4.6 in 2010 to2.4 per 100,000 by 2020, whereas the female age standardised rate is forecast to increasefrom 2.0 in 2010 to 2.2 per 100,000 by 2020. On the other hand, the overall mortality rateof lung cancer (with 95% credible interval shown) is forecast to increase to 2020 from 1.8(1.61, 1.94) in 2010 to 3.04 (0.13, 5.94) per 100,000 population. Age has a strongassociation with lung cancer mortality, suggesting age-related causes such as accumulativeexposures to smoking over time may be the main reason for increasing lung cancermortality in Saudi Arabia. This is the first study to forecast lung cancer incidence andmortality in Saudi Arabia. It will help the Saudi Arabian Ministry of Health to understandthe rate of future lung cancer incidence and mortality and the overall effects of thepopulation classes, and to plan healthcare provision accordingly. The data are limitedbecause the Saudi Cancer Registry has only been in existence since 1992. Therefore, wecan expect the precision of forecasts to improve as further data are collected.

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

Doctoral (Level 8)

Year dc:date.issued

2026

Author dc:creator

• Alzahrani, SM

Language dc:language

en

Identifier

oai:salford-repository.worktribe.com:1397205

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:salford-repository.worktribe.com:1397205