Assessment of clinical and therapeutic factors in patients with nasopharyngeal undifferentiated carcinoma

Abstract

The nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) is a rare cancer with a high incidence in Southern Asia.

Aim: To study the demographic, clinical, therapeutic, and prognostic factors of nasopharyngeal undifferentiated carcinoma in a reference service.

Materials and methods: A retrospective study was made of 46 patients from January 1998 to August 2000. The patients had no previous treatment and did not present any evidence of synchronous tumors or distance metastases.

Results: The age ranged from 14 to 78 years (mean = 46 years); 35 (76%) patients were male. All patients were Caucasian or African-Brazilian. The onset of initial symptoms ranged from 1 to 48 months (mean = 7 months); 47% of the subjects smoked tobacco and 33% consumed alcoholic beverages. A lump in the neck was the most frequent symptom (34 patients). Twenty-two patients were clinically staged as T1/T2 and 24 patients as T3/T4; 24 patients were classified as N2, and 16 patients were staged as N3. Curative treatment consisted of radiotherapy and simultaneous chemotherapy in clinical stages III and IV. Of 27 patients that were monitored, 52% were alive with no evidence of disease after three years.

Conclusion: All patients were in advanced clinical stages of the disease. The three-year disease-free survival rate was 52%.

Figure 1

Distribution of disease-free survival of patients with undifferentiated nasopharyngeal carcinomas.