If you have been following the news, you’d have read about Senior Parliamentary Secretary for Transport Baey Yam Keng’s nose cancer diagnosis in early January. Back in 2018, Malaysian badminton player Lee Chong Wei also had to deal with early-stage nose cancer.Nose cancer – or nasopharyngeal cancer – affects the nasopharynx, which is the upper part of the pharynx behind the nose.
Malaysian Olympic silver medallist Lee Chong Wei and MP Baey Yam Keng have both been diagnosed with early-stage nose cancer. Others suggest that it could be due to smoking since the habit is more prevalent among men. However, there is no conclusive evidence.” NPC's annual average number of cases may still seem significant but it is actually a downtrend from previous data, said Dr Donovan Eu, a consultant with National University Cancer Institute, Singapore’s Division of Surgical Oncology . “In this most updated report, the incidence of NPC has actually been excluded from the top 10 cancers in men,” he said.
Individuals infected by this unique EBV strain have 11 times higher risk for developing NPC than non-carriers”.