Correlating clinical appearance of nasopharyngeal carcinoma with tumour staging.

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.