Abstract 3705: Variable incidence of gastric cancer in Morocco
Authors: Smith Brittney , Khouchani Mouna , Karkouri Mehdi , Lazenby Audrey , Watkins Katherine , Tahri Ali , Benider Abdel-Latif , Rajaram Shireen , Soliman Amr 
Published: August 2015

The purpose of this study was to evaluate and confirm clinical impressions of higher rates of gastric cancer in Marrakech, Morocco compared to Casablanca, Morocco, a city 150 kilometers away.

This study collected demographic information about gastric cancer patients diagnosed or treated in Marrakech. It also calculated age-specific, sex-specific and total incidence rates of gastric cancer in Marrakech and compared them to rates from the population-based cancer registry of Casablanca. Using medical records of gastric cancer patients diagnosed/and or treated at the Center Hospital University_Mohamed VI (CHU) and reports from 4 main, private pathology laboratories in Marrakech, we identified a total of 774 patients for the period 2008-2012. The national census of Morocco was used to identify the population statistics by region and city. Incidence rates were obtained from the available published registries in Casablanca, which included years 2004-2007.

Comparison of the results in Marrakech with rates from Casablanca showed higher age-specific incidence in Marrakech in nearly all age groups for males and females. A higher total incidence in Marrakech than in Casablanca was found with rates of 5.50 per 100,000 and 3.23 per 100,000, respectively. Incidence of gastric cancer was significantly higher among males in Marrakech than males in Casablanca (7.19 and 3.91 per 100,000, respectively) while the difference among females was not as pronounced, but still significantly different (3.87 and 2.58 per 100,000, respectively). By collecting demographic information from CHU gastric cancer patients, the study further revealed that most patients were from Marrakech, but many traveled from 2 administrative regions (as defined by the Kingdom of Morocco) adjacent to the region in which Marrakech is situated.

In conclusion a significantly higher rate of gastric cancer was found in Marrakech when compared to the rates of Casablanca. Age-specific incidence rates of gastric cancer were higher in Marrakech in nearly all age groups for both males and females compared to respective rates in Casablanca. Comparisons of total sex-specific incidence rates found that both males and females in Marrakech had higher rates compared to their respected group in Casablanca. However, the difference in males was much more evident than the difference in females. Finally, the residence of patients found in the medical records was concentrated in the 2 regions surrounding Marrakech and the region Marrakech is in. Future studies should further evaluate the possible under-estimation of gastric cancer in Marrakech and explore the variable rates in other regions of Morocco.

Citation Format: Brittney Smith, Mouna Khouchani, Mehdi Karkouri, Audrey Lazenby, Katherine Watkins, Ali Tahri, Abdel-Latif Benider, Shireen Rajaram, Amr Soliman. Variable incidence of gastric cancer in Morocco. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 106th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2015 Apr 18-22; Philadelphia, PA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2015;75(15 Suppl):Abstract nr 3705. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2015-3705