Abstract

For the determination of incidence and histopathologic findings of nasopharyngeal carcinoma, a study was made on 77 cases that were diagnosed as nasopharyngeal carcinoma at the Department of Pathology, Seoul National University Hospital during a period of 21 years beginning from the year of 1960. Following findings were observed. 1) The relative incidence of nasopharyngeal carcinoma was 0.4% of those of all malignant tumors, which was significantly lower than those of South China, Republic of China, Kenya and Philippines. Thus Korea appears to belong to low incidence countries as Japan and India. 2) Among 77 cases of nasopharyngeal carcinoma there were 54 males and 23 females with sex ratio of 2.3:1. Twenty six cases(33.8%) occurred in the age group of 50∼59 years. And the next commonest was 40∼49 years(21 cases, 27.3%). The mean age of the total cases was 47.9 years. 3) Histopathologic classification of nasopharyngeal carcinoma showed 37 cases of squamous cell carcinoma, 25 cases of undifferentiated carcinoma, 9 cases of transitional cell carcinoma, 4 cases of lymphoepithelioma and 2 cases of adenocarcinoma. 4) An oberservation on normal nasopharyngeal histology of human fetuses, children and adult was also made. Fetal nasopharynx was covered with pseudostratified cliated columnar epithelium. Focal or diffuse replacement of the ciliated surface epithelium by squamous cells was observed in chi1dhood and appeared to increase its extent as the age progressed.