Abstract

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is a major cause of cancer-related death worldwide, and the burden of this devastating disease is expected to increase. The variability in the incidence and prevalence of this disease is documented in many epidemiological studies. This variation may be attributed to the variation in the prevalence of major risk factors such as, smoking, drinking, gender, hepatitis B and C viral infection and the Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (NAFLD). In order to understand the role of such risk factors in the disease etiology a surveillance system with rich data should be available. We intend to use the Saudi Cancer Registry (SCR) data to establish the relationship between age, gender, and the HCC incidence, and the future burden in terms of the forecasted number of liver cancer cases. Moreover we shall link the information available from the Saudi Transplant Registry (STR) with a model that utilizes the number of forecasted HCC cases to predict the future number of needed liver transplants, and hence the economic burden for the next 10 years. This is done by using the Poisson regression model for count data. The projected information will be reported (within limits of uncertainty) and is expected to play a critical role in guiding health officials on future disease patient management.

Keywords: Hepatocellular carcinoma; Risk factors; Saudi cancer registry; Count regression models; Incidence prediction; Goodness of fit