title: Survival benefit of induction chemotherapy in treatment for locally advanced nasopharyngeal carcinoma--A time-to-event meta-analysis.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  This paper aims to compare the longtime efficacy of induction chemotherapy followed by concurrent chemoradiotherapy (IC+CCRT) and concurrent chemoradiotherapy (CCRT) alone in locally advanced nasopharyngeal carcinoma (LANPC) by using time-to-event data based on randomized controlled trials (RCTs).
  
  
  METHODS
  We searched all RCTs comparing the efficacy between IC+CCRT and CCRT of LANPC in major medical databases including Pubmed, web of science, cochrane, China National Knowledge Internet Web (CNKI), Wanfang, and VIP. The Hazard ratios (HR) of time-to-event data on overall survival (OS), progressive free survival (PFS), distant metastasis failure-free survival (D-FFS), and loco-regional failure-free survival (L-FFS) from the enrolled studies were calculated for this meta analysis. Our primary endpoints were OS, PFS, D-FFS, and L-FFS.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Four studies with 798 patients were enrolled for this paper. Compared with in CCRT alone, HRs (95% confidence interval) of OS, PFS, D-FFS and L-FFS were 0.52 (0.21-1.29), 0.66 (0.49-0.90), 0.60 (0.39-0.98) and 0.66 (0.16-2.65) respectively in IC+CCRT.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Induction chemotherapy could significantly reduce the hazard of progression and distant metastasis in LANPC on the basis of concurrent chemoradiotherapy, but do less with the hazard of overall death and loco-regional failure.
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiation Oncology, Huai'an First People's Hospital, Nanjing Medical University, Jiangsu 223300, China.
authors.forename: Yaqi
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Song
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiation Oncology, Huai'an First People's Hospital, Nanjing Medical University, Jiangsu 223300, China.
authors.forename: Wanwei
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiation Oncology, Huai'an First People's Hospital, Nanjing Medical University, Jiangsu 223300, China.
authors.forename: Guangzhou
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Tao
authors.affiliation: Department of Radiation Oncology, Huai'an First People's Hospital, Nanjing Medical University, Jiangsu 223300, China.
authors.forename: Xilie
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Zhou
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D002277:Carcinoma; D059248:Chemoradiotherapy; D018572:Disease-Free Survival; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D060828:Induction Chemotherapy; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D000077274:Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma; D009303:Nasopharyngeal Neoplasms / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000628:therapy; D016032:Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic; D016896:Treatment Outcome; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: Concurrent chemoradiotherapy; Induction chemotherapy; Meta-analysis; Nasopharyngeal carcinoma; Time-to-event