Staging of Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma

In oncology, “to stage” a patient implies two intentions: the first uses clinicopathological examination and investigations to describe the extent of disease to permit a rational treatment strategy to be formulated, and the second employs an agreed classification system to categorize the extent of disease within risk hierarchies that predicts survival following conventional treatment strategies. The most commonly used system to describe the anatomic extent of a cancer is the TNM classification of the Union for International Cancer Control (UICC) and the American Joint Committee on Cancer (AJCC). TNM classification characterizes cancer anatomic extent based on the assessment of three components, T—primary tumor extent, N—absence or presence and extent of regional lymph nodes, M—absence or presence of distant metastasis, and combines them into prognostically relevant stage groups.