Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma Treatment MarketSize and Trends

Nasopharyngeal carcinoma is a rare cancer, affecting the part of throat connecting nose and mouth, known as pharynx. Nasopharyngeal carcinoma are of three types, based on cell appearance under microscope. These include keratinizing squamous cell carcinoma, non- keratinizing differentiated carcinoma, and undifferentiated carcinoma. The early stage symptoms of nasopharyngeal carcinoma are bleeding nose, blockage and stuffiness in nose, persistent ear infection, hearing difficulties, and sore throat whereas, late stage symptoms includes weight loss, facial pain, and bulging eye.

Nasopharyngeal cancers are diagnosed by EBV antibody test, X-ray, ultrasound, endoscopy, biopsy, CT scan, MRI, PET scan or PET-CT scan. Nasopharyngeal treatment includes use of radiation therapy or chemotherapy, however, surgery is done in very rare cases. According to National Center for Biotechnology Information 2016, incidence of nasopharyngeal cancer differs according to the geography, where 81% of new cases are observed in Asia, 9% in Africa and only 10% are diagnosed in rest of the world. Nasopharyngeal carcinoma treatment market is expected to be driven by high incidence rate of the cancer in Asian countries and increasing research and development studies by research organization and universities for treatment of this cancer.

Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma Treatment Market – Driver

Increasing incidence of nasopharyngeal cancer is expected to drive growth of the nasopharyngeal carcinoma treatment market in the forecast period (2018-2026. According to American Cancer Society, 2016, incidence of nasopharyngeal cancer is 1 in 100,000 each year, globally. Furthermore, it estimates that as of 2015, there would be about 3,200 cases of nasopharyngeal cancer in the U.S. According to Canadian Cancer Society’s statistics 2013, 240 Canadians are diagnosed with nasopharyngeal cancer every year whereas, 102 die due to nasopharyngeal cancer every year. According to NHS UK, in the U.K., about 240 people are diagnosed with nasopharyngeal cancer each year.

Furthermore, according to the World Cancer Research 2018, nasopharyngeal cancer is about three times more common in men as compared to women. According to article in Chinese Journal of Cancer, 21,320 people died due to nasopharyngeal cancer in China in 2013, which attributes to 1.14% of all new cancer cases and 0.96% of all cancer-related deaths. Moreover, increasing exposure to smoking tobacco, Epstein-Barr virus, wood dust, and others is expected to further propel growth of the nasopharyngeal cancer and in turn its treatment market.

Research studies conducted by researchers and healthcare providers, to develop better treatment option, is further expected to propel growth of the nasopharyngeal carcinoma treatment market. Taiho Pharmaceutical has new chemotherapy drugs such as S-1 and valproic acid which shows promising potential to treat head and neck cancer.

On other hand, popularity of targeted therapies such as tyrosine kinase inhibitors (dacomitinib, gefitinib, afatinib, erlotinib and lapatinib), phosphoinositide 3-kinase inhibitors (PX-866 and buparlisib), monoclonal antibodies (panitumumab), and mTOR inhibitors (everolimus and temsirolimus) is increasing significantly for the treatment of cancers. For instance, Cetuximab also known as Erbitux, a monoclonal antibody that acts as epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) inhibitor, is been in trial for treating squamous cell nasopharyngeal cancer. Furthermore, nimotuzumab is another EGFR inhibitor with chemotherapy to treat locally advanced nasopharyngeal cancer.

Moreover, antitumor activity of nivolumab (Opdivo) is evaluated for recurrent and metastatic nasopharyngeal carcinoma by Mayo Clinic, which was in phase II clinical trials as per article published in Journal of Clinical Oncology, March 2018.