Saudi Gazette
JEDDAH — The Saudi Association for Children with Cancer (Sanad) said this year it targets to help cure 70 children with cancer and provide them with financial, social and psychological support they and their families need.
Board member and general supervisor of Sanad programs Hamza Oun said, they have decided to establish an association in Jeddah due to the increasing cost of cancer treatment for children and the increase in a number of patients especially children of poor families.
He added that the high costs tend to force low-income families to stop treatment of their children, which deprive them of recovering. He elaborated that they plan to establish branches in Makkah, Madinah and Taif to meet the demand in these cities.
“We are committed to supporting children with cancer especially those in need and who are between 1 and 14 years old,” he said, adding, “Among their programs are charity treatment program, Sanad entertainment program, financial support program, patient visit program, and accommodation program for patients coming from outside Jeddah.”
Data provided by the Ministry of Health show that the most common types of cancer among children in Saudi Arabia is leukemia, which accounts for 34.6 percent of cancer among children, followed by brain cancer, which accounts for 15.1 percent of the cases. Other types include central nervous system tumors and lymphoma.
The cause of childhood cancer is still unknown said a recent Ministry of Health announcement but in a number of cases, it is attributed to genetic abnormalities. It added that as cancer treatment advances, the proportion of children expected to recover is more than 70% while the duration of treatment for childhood cancer ranges from 3 months to 2 1/2 years.
According to the last Saudi Cancer Registry issued in 2014 a total of 822 cancer cases were diagnosed among children aged between 1 and 14 years. This number accounted for 5.2 percent of the total number of cancers reported. The reported incidents show that cancer was more common among boys than girls — 465 (56.6 percent) cases were reported among boys and 357 (43.4 percent) among girls.
Total of 691 cancer cases was reported among Saudi children, 124 were among non-Saudis, and 7 cases were of unknown nationality. The total number of analyzed cases were 812 including 688 Saudis and 124 non-Saudis.
