Early-Stage Nasopharyngeal Cancer

Early-Stage Nasopharyngeal Cancer
Student's Name
University Affiliation
Professor's Name
Course Title
Due Date
Early-Stage Nasopharyngeal Cancer
Nasopharyngeal cancer (NPC) requires timely treatment and early screening to improve quality of life and patient outcomes. This paper highlights the NPC's nature, risk factors, treatment, and essential ethical guidelines during its management.
Nature and Treatment
NPC is a malignancy resulting from the nasopharynx epithelium. Its etiology involves an interaction of genetic structure, EBV viral infection, and environmental factors such as stress, smoking, and nitrosamines in foods (Almomani et al., 2020). NPC is a rare illness since its prevalence is below one case per 100,000 people in non-endemic areas to a high number of 15 to 20 females and 25 to 30 males per 100,000 people in endemic regions (Almomani et al., 2020). NPC has an insidious onset with no signs and symptoms during the initial stage (Yang et al., 2022). Its pathogenesis involves multiple host genes and EBV infection that transform the host cell into a cancer cell. According to Almomani et al. (2020), the infection expresses miRNA in high levels, which can be biomarkers for predicting prognosis and diagnosis.
NPC's trajectory involves an insidious onset from the early stage and progression to downward stages with distant metastasis. The treatment goal is to improve patient care while managing symptoms and side effects, including nasal symptoms like nasal discharges and obstruction, neurological symptoms such as intracranial extension, nodal symptoms like enlarged neck node, and ontological symptoms such as effusions, tinnitus, and conductive hearing loss (Almomani et al., 2020). Patient evaluation includes imaging studies, lab investigations, and endoscopic evaluation. According to Yang et al. (2022), the high cost of care associated with medical expenses negatively impacts medical treatment for patients from low-income families.
The most appropriate treatment for early-stage NPC is radiotherapy. It is also applied during recurrence or treatment failure (Almomani et al., 2020). Physicians can specify the targeted area for radiotherapy and modify the beam’s intensity. Nonetheless, physicians can combine radiotherapy with chemotherapy or use surgical interventions occasionally. However, a combination of chemotherapy and radiotherapy is most appropriate in the advanced stages of the disease (Almomani et al., 2020). Furthermore, chemotherapy is most suitable when the patient has distant metastasis. Surgical options are used as the salvage option since it is hard to access the deep and small nasopharynx. The option is most appropriate when managing distant oligo-metastasis alongside radio ablation and radiotherapy (Almomani et al., 2020). According to Yang et al. (2022), timely diagnosis and treatment of NPC reduce the disease burden by preventing recurrence, poor prognosis, distant metastasis, and a lengthy treatment cycle.
Demographic and Psychological Factors
NPC mainly affects individuals between the ages of 30 to 69 years in all genders, with a higher proportion of patients in the 40 to 49 age group (Yang et al., 2022). Furthermore, male patients are more susceptible to NPC than female...