Evaluation of diagnosis and treatment of nasopharyngeal carcinoma in Indonesia: the necessity of a multilevel approach

Nasopharyngeal cancer is rare in the Netherlands but common in Indonesia. Compared to the treatment results in other countries, post-treatment survival rates are far lower in Indonesia. This PhD dissertation concludes that improvements in treatment results can only be achieved by intervening at three levels: the patient, the general practitioner and the healthcare system. This means that communities have to be made more aware of the symptoms of this form of cancer, which is widespread in Indonesia, GPs have to refer patients to the appropriate medical specialist sooner and patients have to be able to start treatment in time and complete it within a set time frame.