Background: Molecular biological research on nasopharyngeal carcinoma has been widely practiced, such as VEGF, EGFR, COX-2 expression and so on. The results of this study may be helpful in determining the prognosis in patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma, and may be helpful in providing adjunctive therapy in nasopharyngeal carcinoma. MAPK plays a role in cell growth such as proliferation, differentiation, and apoptosis, primarily contributing to gene expression, where P38 MAPK pathways are most commonly associated with anti apoptosis and p38 MAPK pathways cause cell transformation. This study aims to determine the expression of p38 MAPK in nasopharyngeal carcinoma so that the results of this study may also be helpful in the prognosis and adjunctive therapy in nasopharyngeal carcinoma.

Method: The research design is descriptive. Samples were taken from all patients who diagnosed with nasopharyngeal carcinoma in oncology division of Otorhinolaryngology Department / Adam Malik General Hospital Medan.

Results: From 30 nasopharyngeal carcinoma samples, p38MAPK overexpression found in 21 samples (70%). The elevated of p38 MAPK expression most prevalent found on T4 by 8 samples (38.1%), N3 limfe node is the largest group by 9 samples (42.9%), stage IV of clinical staging is as many as 15 samples (71.4%).

Conclusion: There was an increase of p38 MAPK expression in clinical staging of patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma.

Keywords: Nasopharyngeal carcinoma, clinical staging, p38 MAPK, immunohistochemistry