Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 22, 2026
Intramucosal Inoculation of Squamous Cell Carcinoma Cells in Mice for Tumor Immune Profiling and Treatment Response Assessment
Published on: April 22, 2019
Results of combined modality treatment for nasopharyngeal cancer
Ramachandran Venkitaraman1, S Ganapathy Ramanan, A Vasanthan
1Division of Clinical Oncology, Ipswich Hospital, United Kingdom. drvramachandran@gmail.com
Context:
Radiotherapy is the cornerstone of treatment in nasopharyngeal cancer (NPC); the addition of chemotherapy has shown improved results.
Aims:
To compare the results of concurrent chemoradiation with that of radiotherapy alone in NPC.
Materials And Methods:
One hundred and ninety consecutive NPC patients, without distant metastasis, who reported to the institute from January 1992 to December 2001, received external-beam radiation to 66 Gy in 33 fractions. Seventy-five of these patients received concurrent chemotherapy with cisplatin and 5-fluorouracil (5-FU) for four cycles. We compared the results of treatment in these two groups.
Results:
The 5-year disease-free survival rates were 40% and 60%, respectively, for patients who had radiotherapy alone and those who had chemoradiation (P = 0.002), while the median survival was 45 months and 60 months, respectively (P = 0.0028).
Conclusion:
A significant improvement in local control and survival was observed by the addition of concurrent chemotherapy with cisplatin and 5-FU to radical radiation in this nonrandomized study on patients with NPC.
Related Concept Videos
02:56Treatment Resistant Cancers
02:56Treatment Resistent Cancers
02:49Cancer Therapies
However, cancer treatments can pose several challenges, as therapies used to kill cancer cells are generally also toxic to normal cells. Moreover, cancer cells mutate rapidly and can develop resistance to chemical agents or radiation therapy. Besides, all types of cancer cells may not respond to the same therapy. Some cancer cells respond to one...