Influence of biopsy on the prognosis of nasopharyngeal carcinoma--a critical study of biopsy from the nasopharynx and cervical lymph node of 649 patients.

Most of the nasopharyngeal carcinomas (NPC) are histopathologically either poorly differentiated or undifferentiated. After radiotherapy, hematogenous spread is the chief cause of failure for these patients. Biopsies taken from the nasopharynx or the enlarged neck nodes should be performed to establish diagnosis before radiotherapy. The present study was done to ascertain whether the biopsy procedure would affect the final outcome of this malignancy, and to establish certain criteria for clinicians as they endeavor to correctly diagnose and prepare the patients for treatment. Six hundred and forty-nine of 702 NPC patients treated in our hospital from March 1958 through 1972 were analyzed for this purpose and the results are as follows: For patients with fixed and partially fixed neck nodes, the interval between the first biopsy and radiotherapy, the number of times or frequency of biopsy either taken from the nasopharynx or the lymph node and the type of biopsy done on the lymph node did not influence the prognosis. For patients with or without only movable neck nodes, the interval between the first biopsy from the nasopharynx and radiotherapy influenced the final outcome. Patients who received radiotherapy within 14 days after biopsy had a five year survival of 61% (42/69), which is better than that of the patients who started their treatment beyond the 15th day (47.5%-58/122). This is statistically significant (p less than 0.05). The number of times or frequency of biopsy taken from the nasopharynx before radiotherapy did not influence the result of treatment. The interval, therefore, and not the frequency, is important in the biopsy from the nasopharynx. For patients with movable lymph nodes, partial excision of the node gave a poorer five year survival (22%-2/9) than that of patients on whom complete excision was done (50%-9/18). Therefore, complete excision of the node is advised for patients with movable neck node metastasis.