– Objective: Nasopharyngeal cancer is one of the most common cancers in the head and neck areas. Men are two to three times more likely to develop it than women. The peak age of incidence is between 50 and 60 years. Informing about the occurrence, death and risk factors in prevention programs is very important. The aim of this study was to investigate the incidence, mortality, and risk factors for nasopharyngeal cancer in the world.
Materials and Methods: This review study was conducted on published English studies by January 2017 by searching in the databases of PubMed, Scopus and web of science. The search strategy included the key words “nasopharyngeal cancer”, “epidemiology”, “incidence”, “mortality”, “risk factor”, “world”. Studies related to incidence, mortality and risk factors for nasopharyngeal cancer were entered into the review.
Results: Nasopharyngeal cancer is generally more common in Southeast Asia. The five countries with the highest incidence of nasopharyngeal cancer in the world were China, Indonesia, Vietnam, India and Malaysia, respectively. The standard incidence of nasopharyngeal cancer in the world was 1.2 per 100,000 (in men 1.7 per 100,000; in women, 0.7 per 100,000). The five countries with the highest number of deaths were China, Indonesia, Vietnam, India and Malaysia, respectively. The standardized mortality rate for nasopharyngeal cancer in the world was 0.7 per 100,000 (in men 1.0 per 100,000; in women 0.4 per 100,000). The most important risk factors for nasopharyngeal cancer were Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), heredity, human leukocyte antigen (HLA) genes, salt-preserved fish consumption, and history of respiratory diseases.
Conclusions: The incidence of nasopharyngeal cancer is related to the geographic region. Training programs, early screening, good life promotion policies, timely treatment and diagnosis are good for reducing the burden of this cancer.