Yeungnam Univ J Med.  2005 Jun;22(1):72-80.

Clinical Characteristics and Prognostic Factors of Nasopharyngeal Cancer

Affiliations
  • 1Department of Otorhinolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, College of Medicine, Yeungnam University, Daegu, Korea. ssykhs@med.yu.ac.kr

Abstract

BACKGROUND
Nasopharyngeal cancer is a rare disease with a relatively poor prognosis because it tends to be diagnosed at an advanced stage. The aim of this study was to establish the clinical characteristics of nasopharyngeal cancer. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The medical records of 54 patients with nasopharyngeal cancer from January 1993 to December 2002 were reviewed retrospectively. Forty one cases were male (75.9%) and thirteen were female (24.1%). The average age was of 46.9 (range 16 to 78 years) years. The majority of patients (79.6%) were diagnosed in the advanced stage. The most common complaints were a neck mass (55.5%) and the WHO type III (53.7%) was the most frequent histological type. RESULTS: The cumulative survival rate for a 5-year period was 46.5% and the T stage, N stage, pathologic type, and clinical stage were not significantly related to the survival rate. Sixteen of 54 (31.5%) cases presented with a distant metastasis of the bone, lung, brain, spine, and liver, and six cases (11.1%) presented with a locoregional recurrence. CONCLUSION: TNM staging is not appropriate for predicting survival rate of nasopharyngeal carcinoma patients. Therefore, a newer staging system, which includes new factors, is needed to predict the prognosis.

Keyword

Nasopharyngeal cancer

MeSH Terms

Brain
Female
Humans
Liver
Lung
Male
Medical Records
Nasopharyngeal Neoplasms*
Neck
Neoplasm Metastasis
Neoplasm Staging
Prognosis
Rare Diseases
Recurrence
Retrospective Studies
Spine
Survival Rate
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