Early detection of nasopharyngeal cancer is very important, and the cure rate can be over 95%. However, the possibility of cure decreases when it is late stage at the time of diagnosis. The patients’ lack of knowledge about nasopharynx may lead to delayed diagnosis because they do not go to hospital in time.
Common symptoms of nasopharyngeal cancer are as follows: (1) Snotty blood, nasal bleeding is the most common symptom of nasopharyngeal cancer.
(2) Cervical lymph node metastasis: 50% of patients visit the hospital because of lumps in the neck, which are caused by the metastasis of nasopharyngeal lumps to the neck. The enlarged lymph nodes in the neck are painless, hard, movable in the early stage, and fixed by adhesion to skin or deep tissues in the late stage.
(3) Nasal congestion: Nasal congestion accounts for 15.9% of the initial symptoms and 48.0% at the time of diagnosis.
(4) Tinnitus and hearing loss: clinically, many patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma are found due to ear symptoms.
(5) Headache is a common symptom. Most of them are unilateral and persistent pain, mostly in temporal and apical areas.
(6) Eye symptoms: Although nasopharyngeal carcinoma has invaded the orbit or the nerves related to the eye, some patients still seek medical consultation for this symptom. Nasopharyngeal cancer invasion of the eye often causes the following symptoms and signs: visual impairment (may be blind), visual field loss, diplopia, protrusion of the eye and limitation of movement, and nerve paralysis keratitis. Optic nerve atrophy and edema can be seen on fundus examination.
(7) In the process of infiltration of nasopharyngeal cancer into the periphery, trigeminal nerve, abducens nerve, linguopharyngeal nerve and hypoglossal nerve are more involved, while olfactory nerve, facial nerve and auditory nerve are rarely involved.