The objectives of our study were to characterize nasopharyngeal carcinoma patients in the Portuguese Institute of Oncology Hospital in Lisbon (IPOLFG) and identify the main factors that interfere with patients survival rate. We performed a retrospective study involving 157 patients (65% male and 35% female) between the years 2000 and 2005, and a histological classification according to Health World Organization. We constructed a Kaplan-Meier survival curve for the studied patients and evaluated the significance of the different studied factors with a Pearson correlation study. With an average age of 53 years, most of the carcinomas were type III (58%), followed by type II (30%) and at last type I (8%). Fifty-one of carcinomas were in stage IV at time of diagnosis. Ninety-five patients (60%) had remission. Five-year actuarial survival rate of all patients was 65.1%. There was a significant difference (P = 0.033) in the actuarial survival rate of staged IV patients treated with adjuvant chemotherapy. Undifferentiated nasopharyngeal carcinoma is the most frequent type in our geographic area. Chemotherapy improves survival rate, mainly in late stages.