caa a22 4500 388084952 CHVBK 20180307125227.0 cr unu---uuuuu 161130e199907 xx s 000 0 eng 10.1017/S0022215100144718 doi S0022215100144718 pii (NATIONALLICENCE)cambridge-10.1017/S0022215100144718 Factors contributing to delayed diagnosis in nasopharyngeal carcinoma [Elektronische Daten] Nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) can be difficult to diagnose. Not only is the post-nasal space (PNS) inaccessible to examination, it is frequently occupied by normal lympho-epithelium which can make differentiation from NPC difficult. Together with its frequent atypical presentation, it is not surprising that the diagnosis is missed or delayed. This is undesirable as the treatment of early NPC carries an excellent prognosis. The aim of this study is to ascertain the extent of the problem of missed or delayed diagnosis and to study the factors responsible. This was a retrospective study of all newly diagnosed patients with NPC from the Singapore General Hospital and treated in the Department of Therapeutic Radiology in the year 1996 (1 January-31 December). A total of 126 patients were studied. Eighteen patients (14.3 per cent) were found to have delayed diagnosis of more than a month. The delay ranged from 1.2 to 25 months (mean 7.2 months). Factors identified which contributed to delayed diagnosis included i) Clinicians not considering a diagnosis of NPC ii) Clinicians suspecting NPC but misled by the results of investigations iii) Patients refusing investigation or defaulting follow-up. Nearly a fifth of patients with NPC had delayed diagnosis. Many of the factors responsible for the delays appear to be preventable by better patient education and counselling, doctors having sharper clinical acument and skills in NPC diagnosis and the hospital administration having a system of tracking down high risk patients who default. Copyright © JLO (1984) Limited 1999 Nasopharyngeal neoplasms nationallicence Carcinoma nationallicence Diagnosis nationallicence Leong Jern-Lin Department of Otolaryngology, Singapore General Hospital, Singapore Fong Kam-Weng Department of Therapeutic Radiology, National Cancer Centre, Singapore Low Wong-Kein Department of Otolaryngology, Singapore General Hospital, Singapore The Journal of Laryngology & Otology Cambridge University Press 113/7(1999-07), 633-636 0022-2151 113:7<633 1999 113 JLO https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022215100144718 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI 1 research-article jats NATIONALLICENCE 856 40 https://doi.org/10.1017/S0022215100144718 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Leong Jern-Lin Department of Otolaryngology, Singapore General Hospital, Singapore NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Fong Kam-Weng Department of Therapeutic Radiology, National Cancer Centre, Singapore NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Low Wong-Kein Department of Otolaryngology, Singapore General Hospital, Singapore NATIONALLICENCE 773 0- The Journal of Laryngology & Otology Cambridge University Press 113/7(1999-07), 633-636 0022-2151 113:7<633 1999 113 JLO CC0 http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0 nationallicence BK010053 XK010053 XK010000 NATIONALLICENCE NATIONALLICENCE NL-cambridge