A large-scale study of the association between biopsy results and clinical manifestations in patients with suspicion of nasopharyngeal carcinoma.
OBJECTIVE
This study investigated the association between the results of nasopharyngeal (NPX) biopsies and clinical manifestations in patients with suspected nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC).


METHODS
Retrospective cohort study.


METHODS
Four hundred seventy-three patients with 512 NPX biopsies were enrolled. The statistical analyses were conducted to evaluate clinical significance and screening performance for suspected NPC.


RESULTS
The negative rate of all NPX biopsies was 69.7% (345/495), and the majority of the noncancerous group revealed lymphoid hyperplasias (208/345, 60.3%). The three diagnostic capabilities of NPX mass, epistaxis (EPI), neck mass (NM), EPI-NM, EPI-NPX mass, NM-NPX mass, and EPI-NM-NPX mass were 0.595, 0.557, 0.735, 0.609, 0.566, 0.748, and 0.600, respectively.


CONCLUSIONS
Although NPX mass, EPI, and NM were significant to identify suspected NPC, the diagnostic capabilities of combining EPI, NM, and NPX were still low. A large number of noncancerous biopsy results were obtained due to lymphoid hyperplasias often being mistaken as NPC.
Department of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, Chang Gung Memorial Hospital at Chiayi and Chang Gung University College of Medicine, Chiayi, Taiwan.
Chung-Chan
CC
Hsieh
Wen-Hung
WH
Wang
Yen-Chun
YC
Lin
Hsu-Huei
HH
Weng
Kam-Fai
KF
Lee
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D001707:Biopsy, Needle; D002277:Carcinoma; D002648:Child; D015331:Cohort Studies; D016001:Confidence Intervals; D003937:Diagnosis, Differential; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007150:Immunohistochemistry; D008198:Lymph Nodes / Q000473:pathology*; D008297:Male; D008403:Mass Screening / Q000379:methods*; D008875:Middle Aged; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D000077274:Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma; D009303:Nasopharyngeal Neoplasms / Q000473:pathology* / Q000503:physiopathology; D009305:Nasopharynx / Q000473:pathology*; D009367:Neoplasm Staging; D016017:Odds Ratio; D012372:ROC Curve; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D018570:Risk Assessment; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D055815:Young Adult