Salvage surgery for neck residue or recurrence of nasopharyngeal carcinoma: a 10-year experience.
BACKGROUND
To assess the outcome of and determine prognostic factors for neck residue or recurrence of nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) in patients treated with a salvage neck dissection.


METHODS
Over a 10-year period (from January 1998 through December 2007) in a tertiary hospital, we systematically reviewed the clinical charts of 355 patients with NPC who were diagnosed with neck residue or recurrence of nasopharyngeal carcinoma, after radical definitive radiotherapy with or without chemotherapy.


RESULTS
The group with recurrent nodal disease consisted of 285 patients (80.3%), while the group with residual nodal disease included 70 patients (19.7%). There were no patients died of the surgery complications. Overall survival (OS), disease-free survival (DFS), and disease-specific survival (DSS) were 54.11, 35.01, and 55.59%, respectively, at 3-year, and 26.03, 22.65, and 27.84%, respectively, at 5-year. The local control rate in the neck was 70.92% at 3 years and 60.98% at 5 years. For all the 3 survival outcomes (OS, DFS, and DSS) and the local control rate of disease in the neck, there were significant differences between the "residue group" and "recurrence group."


CONCLUSIONS
Radical neck dissection is proven to be safe and effective in the treatment of the neck failure. Our study has demonstrated that it may be possible to choose the selective lymph node dissection for patients of the residue group.
Zhang
Ling
L
Department of Head and Neck Surgery, Fudan University Cancer Hospital, Shanghai, People's Republic of China.
Zhu
Yong-xue
YX
Wang
Yu
Y
Huang
Cai-ping
CP
Wu
Yi
Y
Ji
Qing-hai
QH
D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008207:Lymphatic Metastasis; D008297:Male; D009303:Nasopharyngeal Neoplasms / Q000473:pathology / Q000601:surgery*; D037981:Neck Dissection / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D009364:Neoplasm Recurrence, Local / Q000401:mortality / Q000473:pathology / Q000601:surgery*; D018365:Neoplasm, Residual / Q000401:mortality / Q000473:pathology / Q000601:surgery*; D011379:Prognosis; D012189:Retrospective Studies; D016879:Salvage Therapy; D015996:Survival Rate; D013997:Time Factors