Abstract
At Japan Cancer Institute, 194 patients with malignant tumors of the nasopharynx have been encountered in the period of sixteen years since 1947 to 1962. This was 4% of all the out-patients with head and neck cancer.
The incidence was predominant in male over female in a ratio 2 to 1.
Those who had consuleted with a doctor within three months after the onset of thesymptoms were 46% in cancer and 70% in sarcoma.
Eighty-one per cent of the cases were accompanied with metastasis to the cervical lymph-nodes and 60% of these were of bilateral involvement.
Major symptoms are nasal obstruction (42%), impaired hearing (30%) and headache (20%), and apearnnce of these symptoms was about eaual between cancer and sarcoma in this region.
Histologically, cancer consisted of 52% of squamous cell carcinoma 32% of transitional cell carcinoma and 8% of anaplastic carcinoma, while 92% of sarcoma was reticulum-cell sarcoma.
Thirty-two per cent of the tumors were originally developed from the fornix, 37% were from the lateral walls and 3% were from the soft palate.
