Clinicopathological Characteristics of Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma Patients Based on WHO Classification at Dr. Mohammad Hoesin General Hospital Palembang 2020–2024
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Introduction. Nasopharyngeal carcinoma is one of the major head and neck cancers with a heavy burden of illness in Southeast Asia, especially in Indonesia. The World Health Organization (WHO) recognizes the three main types of nasopharyngeal carcinoma histopathologically as keratinizing squamous cell carcinoma, non-keratinizing squamous cell carcinoma, and basaloid squamous cell carcinoma. This article describes the clinicopathological features of nasopharyngeal carcinoma patients diagnosed at Dr. Mohammad Hoesin General Hospital (RSMH), Palembang, from 2020 to 2024. Methods. A retrospective descriptive observational study was conducted using total sampling method. Clinical and histopathological information was obtained from medical records and pathology archives from patients diagnosed from January 2020 through December 2024. Variables including age, sex, smoking history, clinical stage, operative procedure, and WHO histopathological classification were studied. Results. Out of the 138 cases, 56 were diagnosed in 2024 alone, the highest annual number. Majority of nasopharyngeal carcinoma patients were males (71%), less than 50 years old (50.7%), smokers (63%), and primarily presented with stage III (53.6%) disease. Biopsy dominated as the operative procedure with majority (79.7%) of the cases. Non-keratinizing squamous cell carcinoma was the main tumor type with the differentiated subtype being the most common histopathological identification. Conclusion. These results indicate that nasopharyngeal carcinoma at RSMH mostly involved male patients who had a history of smoking, most of them were diagnosed at an advanced clinical stage, with non-keratinizing squamous cell carcinoma subtype being the most common histological type.
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