Predictif epidemiological and clinical factors of nasopharyngeal carcinoma diagnosis: adult vs pediatric population

Abstract Objective The objective of this study is to compare the clinical presentation and the cancer staging between pediatric and adult nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) to highlight the main characteristics of this disease within the two subgroups. Materiel and methods It is a retrospective study including all patients with a primary diagnosis of NPC admitted in the ENT department of Tahar Sfar hospital in Mahdia; Tunisia from January 2000 to December 2018. The pediatric group included patients who were 16 years old or younger. Results A total of 80 patients were included. Pediatric population represented 22.5% of the cases. In terms of gender distribution, we found no difference between adult and pediatric patients (p˃.05). The most common presenting symptom was neck mass in children (77.8% vs. 48.4%, p=.02), and nasal obstruction in adult patients (64.5% vs. 16.7%, p Conclusion Our study showed some differences of NPC clinical features between pediatric patients and adults. Neck mass is the most common symptom in children. The initial presentation is sometimes misleading. NPC was mainly diagnosed in advanced locoregional stages in both pediatric and adult patients. Efforts toward early diagnosis are of great importance.