Systemic sclerosis in a patient with recent nasopharyngeal carcinoma: an unusual combination.

Nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) is rare among whites but has a far higher incidence among the southern Chinese. In this population NPC often occurs in combination with dermatomyositis [1] and [2]. Systemic sclerosis (SSc) is characterized by fibrosis of the skin and/or internal organs, small-vessel vasculitis, and an autoimmune response associated with specific autoantibodies. SSc occurs as two variants, limited and diffuse, each defined by the amount of skin thickening detectable by physical examination [3]. In vast population-based studies, patients with SSc had a high incidence of cancer, particularly lung carcinoma [4] and the prevalence of solid tumors ranged from 3 to 7% [5]. To our knowledge, a single report has described a patient with NPC in whom progressive SSc developed, with diffuse cutaneous scleroderma and gastrointestinal and pulmonary involvement [6]. We report the case of a patient in whom limited cutaneous scleroderma with gastrointestinal involvement was diagnosed 11 months after NPC.