title: Correlating clinical appearance of nasopharyngeal carcinoma with tumour staging.
abstract: Since there is a tendency for nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) to exhibit sub-mucosal spread and endophytic growth, it would be useful to know if NPC remained inconspicuous in the post-nasal space (PNS) even in advanced stages of disease. The aim of this study was to find out if there was a correlation between tumour appearance in the PNS and tumour stage. One hundred and twenty-two consecutive patients with NPC were studied. The appearance of a tumour in the PNS was classified as to whether or not it was obviously malignant-looking (via naso-endoscopy). Tumour stagings were undertaken according to computerised tomography (CT) scan findings. Of the patients studied, 67 (54.9%) had obvious malignant-looking lesions. Tumour appearance was found to correlate with tumour-staging (p = 0.023, chi-squared test). There was, therefore, a tendency for early tumours to present as inconspicuous or innocuous-looking lesions, whereas advanced tumours tended to appear as obvious malignant-looking lesions in the PNS. The clinical significance of these findings is discussed.
authors.affiliation: Department of Otolaryngology, Singapore General Hospital, Singapore. gollwk@sgh.gov.sg
authors.forename: W K
authors.initials: WK
authors.lastname: Low
authors.forename: J L
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Leong
mesh_terms: D001707:Biopsy, Needle; D002277:Carcinoma / Q000145:classification* / Q000473:pathology* / Q000601:surgery; D016009:Chi-Square Distribution; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009303:Nasopharyngeal Neoplasms / Q000145:classification* / Q000473:pathology* / Q000601:surgery; D009367:Neoplasm Staging; D011379:Prognosis; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed