Nasopharyngeal cancer is a serious disease and it occurs in the nasopharynx, which is located on the backside of your nose and the place above your throat. According to Take2 Health, Nasopharyngeal cancer is difficult to detect in its early stages because its symptoms are similar to those of other common health problems. While nasopharyngeal cancer is a rare disease in the United States, it predominantly occurs in residents of other parts of the globe and a high percentage of patients exist in Southeast Asia.
What are some of the early symptoms of nasopharyngeal cancer?
While the most common treatments for nasopharyngeal cancer include radiation therapy and chemotherapy, nasopharyngeal cancer blood test service is recommended for an early diagnosis. Other than the recommended blood test, there exist a number of symptoms that are pretty noticeable for early stage patients of nasopharyngeal cancer. These symptoms typically include a lump in the patient’s neck, a swelling in a lymph node in the patient’s neck, the occurrence of blood or spotting in the patient’s saliva, constant nasal congestion, the feeling of ringing ears, and the occurrence of bloody discharge from the patient’s nose. Other symptoms may also include a loss in hearing or difficulty in hearing, a higher frequency of the patient catching ear infections, regular headaches, etc.
What are the causes of nasopharyngeal cancer?
Nasopharyngeal cancer, like any other form of cancer, typically begins when certain genetic mutations cause normal cells in the human body to grow uncontrollably and invade bodily structures present around them. In the nasopharyngeal cancer specifically, this multiplication and growth of cells occurs in the squamous cells present in the lining surface of the nasopharynx.
Take2 Health describes one of the reasons for the emergence of nasopharyngeal cancer in the human body to be the Epstein-Barr virus, and humans exposed to it run a higher chance of contracting nasopharyngeal cancer.
Other factors that contribute to the reasons or causes that make certain individuals prone to contracting nasopharyngeal cancer include a person’s gender, their age, their family history, their alcohol consumption and their race.
Men are more likely to contract nasopharyngeal cancer as compared to women, and individuals between the ages of 30-50 are more prone to it as well. Individuals who have a family history of nasopharyngeal cancer are also at increased risk of contracting it themselves and their risk associated is high and directly proportional to their alcohol consumption according to some studies. Additionally, individuals who belong to certain parts of Southeast Asia and Northern Africa are also more prone to contracting nasopharyngeal cancer.
Types of nasopharyngeal cancer
Nasopharyngeal cancer can be studied in two distinct categories – the type that grows to invade the organs or bodily structures around it, and the type that grows to spread to other areas of the body. The former can be very complicated if cancer grows to invade the patient’s entire throat, bones and their cognitive functions. The latter spread to areas beyond the patient’s nasopharynx.
While there doesn’t exist a sure way of determining early symptoms of nasopharyngeal cancer, individuals who are in doubt are recommended to take nasopharyngeal cancer blood test service in order to assess the presence of cancer in their body.
