Nasopharyngeal carcinoma in Uganda

Abstract

Review of histologic material seen in Uganda over the 5‐year period, 1964–1968, revealed 83 cases of nasopharyngeal carcinoma out of a total of 7,000 malignant tumors. All tumors conformed to the anaplastic type, but those with a small cell structure occurred in older men than those made up of larger cells. The histologic appearances of this tumor were seen but rarely in other sites. In Uganda, tumors occur at a remarkably young age; 25% occur in people under the age of 20 years. The different tribes vary markedly in tumor incidence; Nilotic and Para‐Nilotic peoples show a much higher incidence at an earlier age than Bantu or Sudanic groups. The extent to which these differences are due to hereditary and environmental factors is uncertain. It would seem that both will influence the incidence within a given community.

Treatment results of 59 young patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma

“…Childhood nasopharyngeal cancer comprise of 7.2% in Turkey, whereas 1-2% in China, 2.4% in UK, 10% in USA, 12% in Israel, 13% in Kenya, 14.5% in Tunisia, and 18% in Uganda [1,4,[7][8][9][31][32][33][34]. Twenty-four percent crude rate of our institutionally treated nasopharynx patients were 30 years old, mainly owing to being a tertiary reference center.…”

Nasopharyngeal Cancer

“…In Southeast Asia, where the incidence is the highest in the world, the incidence of NPC demonstrates a single peak at about the age of 50 years (Huang 1982). However, NPC shows a bimodal age distribution in nonendemic countries and the fi rst peak is seen in the second decade in addition to the second peak at more advanced age (Selek et al 2005) While the rate of pediatric patients accounts for 6%-18% of all NPC patients in nonendemic countries like Argentina, Turkey, India, Israel, Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, and Uganda, the rate is reported to be less than 1% of all NPCs in the endemic countries (Zubizarretta et al 2000;Berberoglu et al 2001;Laskar et al 2004;Bar-Sela et al 2005;Cammoun et al 1974;Ayan I et al 2003;Sahraoui et al 1999;Schmauz et al 1972). Although NPC has the highest incidence worldwide, in Southeast China, fi rst peak does not exist ).…”

Epstein-Barr virus in nasopharyngeal and salivary gland carcinomas of Greenland Eskimoes

“…The association of NPC with EBV has been further strengthened by the detection of EBV genomes in the malignant epithelial cells by nucleicacid hybridization techniques (zur Hausen et al, 1970(zur Hausen et al, , 1974Nonoyama et al, 1973;Wolf et al, 1973Wolf et al, , 1975 and by demonstration of EBV nuclear antigen (EBNA) in the carcinoma cells (Huang et al, 1974;Klein et al, 1974). Recently Anderson-Anvret et al (1977 have shown that the regular association of EBV with NPC holds good for the undifferentiated or non-keratinizing type (WHO-2 and WHO-3 classification) which dominate in high-risk areas (Clifford & Beecher, 1964;Schmauz & Templeton, 1972;Nielsen et al, 1977), but not for well-differentiated tumours (WHO-1).…”