Neurological Complication in Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma

  Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma (NPC) frequently cause neurological complication such as local ivasion, intracranial infiltration, radicular pain, metastatic spread to brain and spine, And stroke like syndrome due to hypercoagulation. This study was conducted to describe neurological complication in NPC and the factors that may influence. This was a cross sectional study used the data from medical records of patients were referred to neurology department for further assestement on neurological complication and stagging purpose from January until December 2014. Statistical analysis was done with SPSS for windows version 20.0. From 86 samples, mean of age was 49.23+11.28 years old, majority of men (73.3%), tumor size of T3 and T4 (68.6 %), and histopathologically non-keratinized (96.5%, Type II and III of WHO). Clinical onset of NPC were found in 11.89 months, and clinical onset of neurological complication were found in 14.32 months. Local invasion of NPC was noted in all samples (100%) with fifth cranial nerve involvement (26.1 %) of samples. The only factor that significantly influence neurological complication due to local invasion and intracranial infiltration was the size of tumor (p=0.032 ; p=0.02). It was concluded that the main neurological complications were cranial nerve lesions due to local invasion. There is a relationship between tumor size and local invasion and intracranial infiltration