[Update on medical therapies of nasopharyngeal carcinomas]

Nasopharyngeal carcinomas (NPC) are predominantly of undifferentiated type (UCNT or undifferentiated carcinoma of nasopharyngeal type), rare (<1/100,000) and sporadic in occidental countries, but endemic in the Mediterranean area of intermediate incidence (2 to 10/100,000) and highly frequent (>10/100,000) in South East Asia. NPC staging is based on TNM UICC 2002 that has a prognostic and therapeutic orientation impact. Irradiation of the primitive tumor and its extensions remains the standard loco-regional treatment. The recent introduction of primary and concomitant chemotherapy leads to an improvement in terms of overall and disease-free survival, specially for for high-risk-patients (T3-4 and N2-3 disease). Prognosis remain linked to T, N, histologic type and quality of response to chemotherapy and radiotherapy.