ABSTRACT
Objective To investigate the present status of early diagnosis and misdiagnosis of nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC). Methods A total of 50 patients diagnosed as NPC were recruited at the department of nasopharyngeal carcinoma in our hospital. The time from that patients felt discomfort to be diagnosed of NPC was determined bydifferent symptoms and signs. Furthermore , the status of misdiagnosis were also investigated. The spearmans rank correlation was used to analyze the correlation between the cancer stage and the time of confirmeddiagnosis , and the relationship between the rate of misdiagnosed and the rank of the hospital they visited. The χ2 test was then used to analyze the cancer stage with the time when they were diagnosed. Results Results indicated that the time when patients were diagnosed significantly correlated with pTNM stage (P < 0.05). Patients diagnosed in one month were most at stage Ⅱ, diagnosed in six months were stage III, and diagnosed after twelve months were stage Ⅳ(P < 0.05). Furthermore, we found that the rate of misdiagnosis of NPC was 12%. Moreover,the misdiagnosed rate was associated with the rank of the hospital patients visited. Discussion In conclusion , the present status of the early diagnosis of NPC is not optimistic. Most of the patients with NPC were misdiagnosed in basic medical institutions , especially in town or village health center. Thus, it is important to popularize the health knowledge about the secondary prevention of NPC and train the doctor in basic medical institutions.