Nasopharynx cancer

Disease/Syndrome
Nasopharynx cancer
Category
Cancer, Occupational
Acute/Chronic
Chronic
Synonyms
Nasopharyngeal Cancer (NPC); Nasopharyngeal neoplasms; Cancer of nasopharynx
Biomedical References
Comments
There is suggestive evidence that mustard gas and formaldehyde can cause occupational nasopharyngeal cancer. [Siemiatycki, p. 334] Formaldehyde is a Group 1 carcinogen with sufficient evidence that it caused nasopharyngeal cancer in humans. "There is sufficient evidence in humans for the carcinogenicity of wood dust. Wood dust causes cancer of the nasal cavity and paranasal sinuses and of the nasopharynx." [IARC 2012] In conjunction with earlier studies, a pooled analysis involving close to 29,000 wood workers in Britain and the United States (Demers et al., 1995), and two recent large-scale case-control studies in separate Chinese populations (Armstrong et al., 2000; Hildesheim et al., 2001) have yielded strong evidence that intense exposure to wood dust (as occurs under occupational settings) is associated with a duration-dependent, increased risk of NPC." [Schottenfeld, p. 624]
Latency/Incubation
Years to decades
Diagnostic
Biopsy
ICD-9 Code
147
ICD-10 Code
C11

Symptoms/Findings, Job Tasks, and Agents Linked to This Disease

Agents

Hazardous agents that cause the occupational disease: