Meta-analysis of concurrent chemoradiotherapy in the treatment of locoregionally advanced nasopharyngeal carcinoma.
BACKGROUND
With radiotherapy (RT) alone, the five-year overall survival (OS) rate for advanced nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) can only reach 40%, the ratio of distant metastasis (DM) is 36-40%. This meta-analysis was performed to compare the clinical efficacy of concurrent chemoradiotherapy (CCRT) with RT alone in the treatment of locoregionally advanced NPC.


METHODS
The related literature were retrieved and reviewed by two independent investigators from the followed electronic databases: Review manager 5.3 software (Cochrane Collaboration, London, United Kingdom) was applied for statistical analysis.


RESULTS
A total of 16 trials with 2576 patients were recruited according to the criterion. The odds ratios of 3 and 5 years OS was 0.53 (95% confidence interval [95% CI]: 0.44-0.64) and 0.58 (95% CI: 0.48-0.71), which confirmed the significant improvement of CCRT compared with RT alone (P < 0.001). CCRT also reduced the risk of locoregional control failure and DM in locoregionally advanced NPC patients.


CONCLUSIONS
The results suggested that CCRT was more beneficial when compared with RT alone in locoregionally advanced NPC patients. Further study is needed to perform to confirm this effect.
Yueshu
Y
Wang
Wei
W
Ding
Chuang
C
Chen
Zhihao
Z
Niu
Ming
M
Pan
Department of Thyroid Surgery, Second Hospital of Jilin University, Changchun 130041, Jilin, China.
Hong
H
Zhang
D002277:Carcinoma; D059248:Chemoradiotherapy / Q000379:methods; D006801:Humans; D000077274:Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma; D009303:Nasopharyngeal Neoplasms / Q000401:mortality / Q000473:pathology* / Q000628:therapy*; D009362:Neoplasm Metastasis; D009367:Neoplasm Staging; D016017:Odds Ratio; D017211:Treatment Failure; D016896:Treatment Outcome