Role of chemoradiotherapy in intermediate prognosis nasopharyngeal carcinoma

To evaluate the long term impact of concurrent chemoradiotherapy (CCRT) compared to radiotherapy (RT) alone in patients with T2N1M0 nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) retrospectively. Three hundred and ninety-two patients with T2N1M0 NPC according to the AJCC 2002 stage classification system were analyzed. Among them, 211 patients were treated with RT alone and the rest of 181 patients were treated with CCRT. A planned dose of 70 Gy was delivered in 2.0 Gy per fraction over 7 weeks to the primary tumor with 6-MV photons or (60)Cobalt γ-ray. The chemotherapy regimen of cisplatin with a dose of 100mg/m(2) was delivered for 2-3 cycles. With a median follow-up of 66 months (range 2.4-117.1 months), the 5-year overall survival (OS) and disease-free survival (DFS) rates was higher in CCRT group compared to RT alone group, though they failed to reach statistical significance (80.2% vs. 76.6%, P=0.778 and 70.5% vs. 64.2%, P=0.413, respectively). A significant improvement was detected in 5-year relapse-free survival (RFS) rate in CCRT group than RT alone group (91.5% vs. 77.3%, P=0.008). Moreover, chemotherapy was the only independent prognostic factor for the 5-year RFS (P=0.007). Concurrent chemoradiotherapy appeared to improve the 5-year RFS rate for patients with T2N1M0 NPC. Large prospective, randomized clinical studies are needed to confirm its therapeutic gain.