$re = '/^\((?P<speciality>(?:[0-9x]+,?)+)(?=\))/m';
$str = '(7)Which of the following is LEAST to be considered as a risk factor for esophageal cancer?;
(8,13)30 year old woman with amenorrhea, low serum estrogen and high serum LH/FSH, the most likely diagnosis is:
First trimester spontaneous abortion (before 20 wk) is most commonly due to:
';
preg_match_all($re, $str, $matches, PREG_SET_ORDER, 0);
// Print the entire match result
var_dump($matches);
Please keep in mind that these code samples are automatically generated and are not guaranteed to work. If you find any syntax errors, feel free to submit a bug report. For a full regex reference for PHP, please visit: http://php.net/manual/en/ref.pcre.php