What is the cause of nasopharyngeal carcinoma metastasis

What is the cause of nasopharyngeal carcinoma metastasis? Nasopharyngeal carcinoma is a malignant tumor with a high incidence in my country, and often metastasizes in the early stages, which seems to be somewhat different from our general understanding that cancer metastasis is in the late stage. So what is the reason for this? The following is a detailed introduction for you.

What is the cause of nasopharyngeal carcinoma metastasis? Why does nasopharyngeal carcinoma metastasis occur at an early stage?

First, we need to understand the location and characteristics of nasopharyngeal carcinoma.

The site of nasopharyngeal carcinoma is the top and side walls of the nasopharynx, and it is extremely rare for it to occur on the front wall and bottom wall. The gross morphology of nasopharyngeal carcinoma is divided into five types, namely nodular type, cauliflower type, submucosal type, invasive type and ulcerative type.

The characteristics of nasopharyngeal carcinoma are: the site of occurrence is hidden, and it is adjacent to important organs such as the eyes, ears, nose, throat, skull base bones and cranial nerves. It has a biological behavior that is easy to directly infiltrate adjacent organs or metastasize to lymph nodes under the mucosa, so the symptoms are variable or not obvious, and are often neglected by patients or doctors. Clinically, many patients often go to internal medicine, surgery, neurology, and ophthalmology for treatment first, and after many twists and turns, they go to the otolaryngology or radiotherapy department for diagnosis and treatment.

Due to the hidden location of the nasopharynx, the early symptoms are complex and prone to misdiagnosis and missed diagnosis. In addition, the primary lesions of nasopharyngeal carcinoma are very small and not obvious, and it is easy to metastasize to the cervical lymph nodes and cranial nerves very early. The early metastasis of nasopharyngeal carcinoma is actually just a difference caused by the different staging methods used. Due to the special location of the primary lesion of nasopharyngeal carcinoma, its chance of metastasis is higher than other cancers. Because of this, it is possible to metastasize when the primary lesion is not very obvious.