Table 1.

Summary of the studies reporting on solitary splenic metastases from NPC

Year	First author	Type of study	Number and type of patients considered	Patients with solitary splenic metastases from NPC	Patient’s age, sex (M, F)	Comorbidity	Primary treatment for NPC	Disease-free survival after primary treatment	Methods of detection of splenic metastasis	Treatment for solitary splenic metastasis	Confirmatory histology of NPC splenic metastases	Overall survival (status at last follow-up)	Relapse after splenic surgery
2000	Lam & Tang [3]	CS	92 patients with splenic metastases	1 (1.1 %)	M	NS	NS	NS	NS	- Splenectomy	UCNT	NS	NS
2013	Suh et al. [38]	CR	1 non-keratinizing NPC	1	35 years old, M	EBV	- Neoadjuvant chemotherapy (cysplatin and 5-fluorouracil) - Left medial maxillectomy with left modified radical neck dissection - Adjuvant radiochemotherapy (cysplatin and 63 Gy)	7 months	FDG-PET/CT FNA biopsy	- Systemic chemotherapy (docetaxel and cysplatin) - Laparoscopic splenectomy	UCNT	5 months (alive)	Nil
2015	Abu-Zaid et al. [27]	CR	1 NPC	1	26 years old, M	NS	- Surgical resection - Adjuvant radiochemotherpay	6 years	CT FNA biopsy	- Splenectomy	UCNT	12 months (alive)	Nil
2015	Present study	CR	1 NPC	1	56 years old, M	Smoker, EBV	- Neoadjuvant chemotherapy (docetaxel, carboplatin, and 5-Fluorouracil) - Radiotherapy (70 Gy)	3 months	PET/CT	- Laparoscopic splenectomy	UCNT	4 months (alive)	Nil

CR case report, CS case series, NPC nasopharyngeal carcinoma, UCNT undifferentiated carcinoma of the nasopharyngeal type, M male, F female, EBV epstein-barr virus, SCC squamous cell carcinoma, FNA fine-needle aspiration, CT computed tomography, MRI magnetic resonance imaging, PET positron emission tomography, NS not specified