Melanoma and non-melanoma skin cancer among patients who attended at King Khalid University Hospital in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia from 2007 - 2018

OBJECTIVES: To assess the prevalence of melanoma and non-melanoma skin cancer for patients attended King Khalid University Hospital, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. We are also assessing the most common category of skin cancer to be encountered among those patients. METHODS: The authors conducted a retrospective study including all patients (Saudi and non-Saudi) who attended King Khalid University Hospital (KKUH) at the period of (2007-2018). Data were collected from archives of Pathology Department at KKUH and categorized into: melanoma skin cancer (MSC), non-melanoma skin cancer (NMSC), which included: basal cell carcinoma (BCC) and squamous cell carcinoma (SCC), pre-neoplastic lesions, and non-neoplastic skin lesions. RESULTS: A total of 111 patients were reported to have skin cancer out of 9828 cases, which had other skin pathology. Majority of cases were basal cell carcinoma with a total number of 76 (68.5%) of all cases. 18 patients (16.2%) were diagnosed with MSC. The remaining 17 patients (15.3%) were diagnosed with squamous cell carcinoma. CONCLUSION: Skin cancer prevalence and incidence is increasing worldwide. In our study, BCC was the most common type of skin cancer to be reported in our institute, which is similar to the majority of other international studies.