Naso What?

That was my first comment when the doctor told me that I probably had nasopharyngeal cancer. Based on some of the tests they were running I figured that I had something like lymphoma and had no clue what they were talking about.

It turns out that nasopharyngeal cancer is a rare head and neck cancer. There are approximately 2000 cases a year diagnosed. It is more prevalent in Asia. Here locally they may only see one or two new cases a year. (Not too worry, they do have excellent treatment for it here. More on that in another post.) Information on nasopharyngeal cancer can be found here at the National Cancer Institutes web site.

http://www.cancer.gov/cancertopics/pdq/treatment/nasopharyngeal/Patient/page1

One problem with a cancer that is so rare is that there is little data to go on and some of it is outdated or has problems due to the small sample size of the study. For example one study had a higher 5 year survival rate for stage III than stage II. Then mentioned in that study that the low sample rate meant that the numbers were not very accurate. Or as the oncologist told us unlike breast or colon cancer where there are many cases nasopharyngeal cancer can't be broken down into more specific categories for studies. Most studies include people of all age groups, health status and stages.

Having said all of that the oncologist felt that my prognosis is very good. The overall 5 year cure rate is 70% for all ages but given my health, age, lack of other symptoms and that I would be put on the strongest treatment regime he felt my prognosis was better than that. I just wanted to mention that before anyone started googling this cancer and found a wide variance in the results. All in I should be fine once the treatment has been completed.