Thyroid gland diseases are a public health problem worldwide. Imbalance in the regulation of thyroid gland hormones can cause many disorders that range from a small goiter to life threatening diseases, such as thyroid cancer. Thyroid dysfunction both hyper and hypothyroidism can affect circulatory system by affecting cardiac output, cardiac contractility, blood pressure, vascular resistance and rhythm disturbance which can further cause heart failure, fibrillation, congestive heart failure and blood pressure. Westernization and nutrition transition in Arab world have increased the burden of adenocarcinomas, including thyroid cancer. This review aims to present the aggregated burden, risk factors and prognosis of various thyroid diseases prevalent in Arab countries. An electronic databases search was conducted using PubMed in addition to searching of accessible local journals in Arab world, using keywords and terms like epidemiology, burden, odds, risks, etc. After applying exclusion and inclusion criteria, 21 articles were selected to include in this review. The review showed that the prevalence of different types of thyroid disease varied between the reported studies in Arab world ranging from 6.18 to 47.34% prevalence of goiter reported by several studies conducted in Arab world, such as Egypt, Algeria and Bahrain with 25.25, 86 and 1.7%, respectively. Gender, dietary factors, iodine deficiency, family history, diabetes and x-ray radiation were reported as risk factors associated with different type of thyroid diseases. The most prevalence of thyroid disease was concluded to be thyroid lesions which varied in different regions of Arab and the burden of thyroid cancer is very high and very common in different Arab region, and further longitudinal studies are still needed to investigate the prognosis and determinants of these thyroid diseases in the Arab world.

Several studies have been conducted on congenital heart disease in different regions of Saudi Arabia. However, no recent systematic review has examined the growing scientific evidence with respect to the epidemiology of CHD in the Kingdom. The aim of this review is to provide a comprehensive summary of CHD incidence, prevalence, burden and impact on the Saudi population. A literature search was conducted through PubMed and Google Scholar using relevant keywords to identify studies performed in Saudi Arabia regarding CHD from 1993 to December 2013. Articles written in English that described or investigated the epidemiology, etiology, distribution, impact and burden of CHD in the Saudi Arabian population were included. Twenty one articles met these criteria. Cross-sectional studies found the prevalence of CHD ranging between 2.1 and 10.7 per 1,000 persons. The most prevalent type of CHD was the ventricular septal defect ranging from 29.5 to 39.5% of all diagnosed CHDs, followed by atrial septal defect (8.9 to 18.1%) and pulmonary stenosis (6 to 12.4%). Overall, the incidence of severe CHD was approximately 5.4 per 1,000 live births per year. Occurrence of CHD in Saudi Arabia was significantly associated with Down's syndrome, consanguinity and maternal diabetes. Studies on the burden of these anomalies on children, families and society are scarce. This systematic review found that prevalence of CHD is comparable to that in other developing countries. Several modifiable risk factors have been identified emphasizing the importance of public health programs that are aimed at tackling such potentially preventable risk determinants.