What is nasopharyngeal cancer? How to treat nasopharyngeal cancer?

What is nasopharyngeal cancer? How is nasopharyngeal cancer treated?

Nasopharyngeal carcinoma is a highly invasive tumor that invades deep structures in the early stage. It often occurs in the pharyngeal recess and the anterior wall of the nasopharynx. The lesions can be nodular, ulcerative, submucosal infiltrating, etc. Most of them are poorly differentiated squamous cell carcinomas. Others may be adenocarcinomas, undifferentiated carcinomas, etc.

Nasopharyngeal cancer is often accompanied by the following symptoms: a feeling of blockage in the ears, perforation of the palate, nasal mucus that seems to be unable to be blown out, difficulty swallowing, mouth breathing, coma, tongue muscle atrophy, edema at the root of the nose, a foreign body sensation in the throat, stenosis of the nasopharyngeal cavity, deviation of the tongue, and bloody and purulent nasal mucus.

How is nasopharyngeal cancer treated?

Treatment of NPC depends on the stage of the cancer. Stage I NPC is usually treated with radiation therapy alone to treat the tumor in the nasopharynx, with preventive external beam radiation therapy to the lymph nodes in the neck.

For patients with early stage II NPC, which has a small tumor and no lymph node metastasis, single radiotherapy is usually used for external radiotherapy of the nasopharyngeal tumor and preventive radiotherapy of the neck. The prognosis of patients with advanced stage is poor, and these patients need systemic chemotherapy combined with palliative radiotherapy.