Impact of different therapeutic regimens on survival of patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma

Abstract

Purpose: Nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) demonstrates specific histo-genetic features that affect its biological behaviour. Our aim was to investigate the correlation between different therapeutic approaches and survival of patients with NPC in southwestern Greece based on specific clinicopathological features.

Methods: Seventy-two NPC patients (n=72) were treated between 1990 and 2014 at the University Hospital of Patras. Patient demographics, tumor histology, use of tobacco and alcohol, exposure to mutagenic agents, chosen treatment and survival were recorded. All patients were treated with radiotherapy (RT), chemotherapy, surgery or their combinations.

Results: In the patients who used immobilization mask during RT, the 5-year survival rate and overall survival was higher than the rest of patients (57% and 6 years vs. 13.6% and 3.36 years, p=0.0001, respectively)*. RT with mask combined with chemotherapy increased survival rates compared to RT without chemotherapy conventional regimen (p=0.0001). Additionally, patients who received chemotherapy demonstrated a 5-year survival of 51.6% compared to those without chemotherapy (11% p=0.0014). (*The 5-year survival rate group of patients refers to the percentage of people who will be alive 5 years after diagnosis. It does not include those who die from other diseases. Sometimes, this includes all people with a specific cancer type. Researchers call this an overall rate. In contrast, overall survival provides information for the length of time from either the date of diagnosis or the start of treatment for a disease, such as cancer, that patients diagnosed with the disease are still alive. In a clinical trial, measuring the overall survival is one way to see how well a new treatment works.) Conclusions: In the majority of examined NPC cases treated with the use of immobilization RT mask along with chemotherapy, a significantly better prognosis compared to conventional RT-chemotherapy treatment was observed. Thus, chemotherapy offers an advantage to patient survival as an adjuvant treatment regimen in conjunction with RT.