Guangdong has the highest incidence and mortality rate of nasopharyngeal cancer in the world, which is 20-60 times higher than the average. Nasopharyngeal cancer is hidden and not easy to detect, and more than 60% of patients have metastasis by the time they are found, so early detection of nasopharyngeal cancer is quite important. All patients have early signs and symptoms, and if you are alert enough to the changes in your body and detect the disease early, you can get effective treatment.
The following are the conditions that you should pay special attention to: 1. Swollen lymph nodes in the neck – Most of the nasopharyngeal cancer will metastasize to the lymph nodes in the neck before spreading and metastasizing to other areas. Swollen lymph nodes are usually painless and progressively enlarged. Once swollen lymph nodes in the neck are found to have not subsided for more than 2 weeks, it should be taken seriously.
2. Retractable bloody snot – Malignant tumors of nasopharynx often bleed in small amount, which is manifested as blood in nasal snot for several days in a row, especially blood in sputum spitted out after nasal aspiration.
3.Sense of ear occlusion–Nasopharyngeal tumor compresses the eustachian tube connected to the middle ear, which will cause a sense of ear occlusion, hearing loss, tinnitus, etc.
4. Nerve involvement symptoms – persistent headache, drooping of one eyelid, double vision and even hoarseness may be symptoms of nasopharyngeal cancer.
Each of the above symptoms should draw your attention, especially when these symptoms appear at the same time, you must go to hospital immediately.
Treatment of nasopharyngeal carcinoma The first choice is radiation therapy, which can be combined with chemotherapy, traditional Chinese medicine and immunotherapy during radiotherapy to prevent distant metastasis, improve the sensitivity of radiotherapy and reduce the complications of radiotherapy. In addition, salvage surgery and post-mounted radiation therapy can be used for residual lesions or recurrent lesions after radiotherapy.