Cervical adenocarcinoma in women with nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC)

Multiple primary cancers account for only 0.38% of all cases in the Singapore Cancer Registry. The close temporal association of nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) in three Chinese women with uterine cervical adenocarcinoma was observed in our department within a 3-month period; one other case was extracted from the local literature. Although NPC is a common neoplasm in local Chinese women, uterine cervical adenocarcinomas comprise only 8% of cervical cancers locally. The close occurrence of these cancers does not seem to be related to the therapy used for cervical cancer and suggests that an association of the Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) with uterine cervical adenocarcinoma should be further investigated.