A large-scale study of the association between biopsy results and clinical manifestations in patients with suspicion of nasopharyngeal carcinoma.

OBJECTIVES/HYPOTHESIS: This study investigated the association between the results of nasopharyngeal (NPX) biopsies and clinical manifestations in patients with suspected nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC).

STUDY

DESIGN

Retrospective cohort study.

METHODS

Four hundred seventy-three patients with 512 NPX biopsies were enrolled. The statistical analyses were conducted to evaluate clinical significance and screening performance for suspected NPC.

RESULTS

The negative rate of all NPX biopsies was 69.7% (345/495), and the majority of the noncancerous group revealed lymphoid hyperplasias (208/345, 60.3%). The three diagnostic capabilities of NPX mass, epistaxis (EPI), neck mass (NM), EPI-NM, EPI-NPX mass, NM-NPX mass, and EPI-NM-NPX mass were 0.595, 0.557, 0.735, 0.609, 0.566, 0.748, and 0.600, respectively.

CONCLUSIONS

Although NPX mass, EPI, and NM were significant to identify suspected NPC, the diagnostic capabilities of combining EPI, NM, and NPX were still low. A large number of noncancerous biopsy results were obtained due to lymphoid hyperplasias often being mistaken as NPC.