[Cancers of the upper aerodigestive tract: the particular case of nasopharyngeal cancer].

Nasopharyngeal carcinomas belong -in France- to the spectrum of rare diseases with several specificities owing to their etiology, epidemiology, diagnosis and therapeutics compared with other head and neck tumors. Educating physicians about the diagnostic and therapeutic elements of NPC and its functional consequences allows these patients to be better diagnosed and followed up during and after specific oncological treatment, and to enlighten them about the therapeutic options, in particular conformal radiotherapy, the mainstay of the management, and particularly effective systemic treatments. Prospects for treatment and follow-up are emerging, related or not to the specificity of this tumor often induced by the Epstein-Barr virus.