prognosis
Last reviewed 01/2018
The prognosis of nasopharyngeal carcinoma depends more upon the extent and intensity of radiotherapy received rather than the stage of diagnosis; modern supervoltage techniques may achieve 50% or more 5 year survival rates, whereas previously, this may have been expected to be of the order of 10 - 30%.
Mortality usually results from intracranial extension, respiratory obstruction, haemorrhage or cachexia.