A large-scale study of the association between biopsy results and clinical manifestations in patients with suspicion of nasopharyngeal carcinoma

Objectives/Hypothesis: This study investigated the association between the results of nasopharyngeal (NPX) biopsies and clinical manifestations in patients with suspected nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC). Study Design: Retrospective cohort study. Methods: Four hundred seventy-three patients with 512 NPX biopsies were enrolled. The statistical analyses were conducted to evaluate clinical significance and screening performance for suspected NPC. Results: The negative rate of all NPX biopsies was 69.7% (345/495), and the majority of the noncancerous group revealed lymphoid hyperplasias (208/345, 60.3%). The three diagnostic capabilities of NPX mass, epistaxis (EPI), neck mass (NM), EPI-NM, EPI-NPX mass, NM-NPX mass, and EPI-NM-NPX mass were 0.595, 0.557, 0.735, 0.609, 0.566, 0.748, and 0.600, respectively. Conclusions: Although NPX mass, EPI, and NM were significant to identify suspected NPC, the diagnostic capabilities of combining EPI, NM, and NPX were still low. A large number of noncancerous biopsy results were obtained due to lymphoid hyperplasias often being mistaken as NPC.