Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma: Unusual Case Reports

Abstract

The average incidence of nasopharyngeal carcinoma in large cancer clinics varies between 0.7% and 2.5% of all malignancies reported.¹ A well-known exception to this low percentage is the much higher occurrence found in the Chinese where it is more than 30 times as common.² The incidence of this tumor in children is much more infrequent and makes up only 1% of the total number of cases.³ The unfortunate odds of this disease striking two children in one non-Chinese family is infinitesimally small. There have been two such reports in the literature. One was by McConnell⁴ and the other by Stinson and Whiteleather.^5,6 This article will report the third such occurrence. Another rare finding of this report is that of hypertrophic osteoarthropathy as a complication of nasopharyngeal carcinoma. In reviewing the literature there is a reference by Martin, a radiologist, in an article published in 1938,