title: Treatment results and late complications of 556 patients with locally advanced nasopharyngeal carcinoma treated with radiotherapy alone.
abstract: The aim of this study was to investigate the outcome in 556 patients with locally advanced nasopharyngeal carcinomas treated by radiation therapy alone. We observed 556 patients with stage T3-4 and N0-3 carcinoma who were treated by conventional radiotherapy alone between January and December 1999. The total dose delivered to the nasopharynx was 66-80 Gy over 6.5-8 weeks and to the neck lymph nodes 60-70 Gy over 6-7 weeks. The 5-year actuarial overall survival rate (OS) reached 66.41%. The OS was higher among stage T3 patients than among stage T4 patients (69.12% vs 58.96%, p = 0.0359). Among patients with stage N0, N1, N2 and N3 disease, the OS was 73.98%, 65.96%, 57.58% and 29.39%, respectively (p = 0.0009). Differences in disease-free survival, locoregional control rate and metastasis-free survival rate among each N stage were statistically significant, although this was not true of differences between stage T3 and T4 disease. Multivariate analysis showed that gender, age, T stage and N stage were significant prognostic factors for 5-year overall survival, disease-free survival, locoregional control and metastasis-free survival. We found that N stage is the dominant prognostic indicator for patients with locally advanced nasopharyngeal carcinoma receiving conventional radiation therapy alone, and that T stage was only a secondary correlative factor.
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiation Oncology, Cancer Center, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, People's Republic of China.
authors.forename: C Y
authors.initials: CY
authors.lastname: Chen
authors.forename: F
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Han
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Zhao
authors.forename: L X
authors.initials: LX
authors.lastname: Lu
authors.forename: Y
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Sun
authors.forename: X F
authors.initials: XF
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: T X
authors.initials: TX
authors.lastname: Lu
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D018572:Disease-Free Survival; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008207:Lymphatic Metastasis; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D009303:Nasopharyngeal Neoplasms / Q000401:mortality / Q000473:pathology / Q000532:radiotherapy*; D009367:Neoplasm Staging; D011379:Prognosis; D011829:Radiation Dosage; D011878:Radiotherapy / Q000009:adverse effects; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D016896:Treatment Outcome; D055815:Young Adult