The present study aimed to assess early-stage nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) with dynamic contrast-enhanced magnetic resonance imaging (DCE-MRI) and diffusion-weighted imaging (DWI) at 3.0 T. A total of 44 patients newly diagnosed with NPC were included in the present study. All patients underwent MR examination at 3.0 T using DCE-MRI and DWI. The volume transfer constant ( ), flux rate constant between extravascular extracellular space and plasma ( ), the volume of extravascular extracellular space per unit volume of tissue ( ) and the apparent diffusion coefficient (ADC) of tumours were investigated. Furthermore, the correlation between clinical stages and ADC value and were analysed. The diagnostic accuracy of and ADC were estimated using receiver operating characteristic curves. NPC stage correlated positively with and negatively with ADC values. Additionally, tumour negatively correlated with ADC value. The sensitivity and accuracy of combined and ADC in distinguishing between stage II and stage III and stage III and IV were higher than the values of either measurement used separately. The present study suggested that and ADC derived from DCE-MRI and DWI may be useful to detect stage early NPC accurately. and ADC in combination were superior than either alone.