ABSTRACT
Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma (NPC) is one of the most dominant cancers in Southern China and Southeast Asia. The prevalence of NPC in Indonesia is 3.9 per 100,000 population every year. Cyclooxygenase (COX) is an enzyme in biosynthetic pathways of Prostaglandins (PG), thromboxane and prostacyclin of arachidonic acid. Expression of COX-2 increases in the early stages of carcinogenesis, and during the development and invasive growth of tumours. To find out the expression of COX-2 in nasopharyngeal carcinoma patients this descriptive study was undertaken with 30 NPC samples of patients in Haji Adam Malik General Hospital Medan. NPC was mostly found in the group 41-60 years (60%), males (73.3%), and non-keratinising squamous cell carcinoma (53.3%). Positive COX-2 expression in non-keratinising squamous cell carcinoma (54.5%), T3-T4 primary tumour size (68.2%), neck enlargement of N2-N3 (68.3%) and clinical stage of III-IV (90.9%). There is an increase of COX-2 expression in the advanced stages of nasopharyngeal carcinoma.
