Need for a national cancer registry in Pakistan: challenges and way forward Authors Saleema Begum Department of Surgical Oncology, Shaukat Khanum Memorial Cancer Hospital and Research Center, Lahore, Pakistan Muhammad Rizwan Khan Department of Surgery, Aga Khan University Hospital, Karachi, Pakistan DOI: https://doi.org/10.47391/JPMA.6258 Keywords: Cancer, Registry, Prevention Abstract The incidence of cancer is rising globally at a remarkable rate. According to the global cancer Observatory, the total number of cases in Pakistan were 178,388 in 2020; and these figures were provided by the Punjab Cancer Registry which represents the population of Lahore and some parts of central Punjab. Considering the overall 220 million population, these figures are severe underestimation of the true cancer burden in Pakistan. Unfortunately, several attempts at establishing a national cancer registry in the country have failed in the past. Resource limitations, including funds, manpower and infrastructure, and the lack of interest on the part of the governments are behind the failure of the establishment of a national cancer database. ---Continue Downloads Full Text Article Published 2023-06-15 How to Cite Saleema Begum, & Khan, M. R. (2023). Need for a national cancer registry in Pakistan: challenges and way forward. Journal of the Pakistan Medical Association, 73(7), 1475–1479. https://doi.org/10.47391/JPMA.6258 More Citation Formats ACM ACS APA ABNT Chicago Harvard IEEE MLA Turabian Vancouver Download Citation Endnote/Zotero/Mendeley (RIS) BibTeX Issue Vol. 73 No. 7 (2023): JULY Section NARRATIVE REVIEW License Copyright (c) 2023 Journal of the Pakistan Medical Association This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.