Biopsy of cervical lymph node does not impact the survival of nasopharyngeal carcinoma

The optimal practice regarding cervical lymph node biopsy (CLNB) remains to be defined to provide the best clinical management in nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC). This study aimed to investigate the effect of CLNB on the survival of NPC patients.

Patients diagnosed with NPC from 2004 to 2015 were identified using the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results database. Multivariate logistic regression, Kaplan-Meier method, Cox proportional hazards regression analysis, and propensity score matching (PSM) were used to determine the factors associated with CLNB and prognostic effect of CLNB of NPC.

We included 1903 patients in this study. There were 321 (16.9%) and 1582 (83.1%) patients with and without CLNB, respectively. The percentage of CLNB was 19.4% in 2004 and was decreased to 8.6% in 2015 (p = 0.044). Patients diagnosed in later years (p = 0.008), older age (p < 0.001), Chinese (p = 0.002), advanced tumor stage (p < 0.001), and early nodal stage (p = 0.003) were less likely to receive additional CLNB. In patients who received additional CLNB, the 5-years NPC-specific survival (NPCSS) was 83.6%, which was similar to patients without CLNB (80.1%, p = 0.159). In addition, a similar 5-years NPCSS was found between those receiving biopsy or aspiration of regional lymph node and those receiving lymph node resection (p = 0.584). There were 187 pairs of patients who were completely matched using PSM, the multivariate prognostic analyses indicated that the receipt of CLNB was not associated with an inferior outcome in the PSM cohort (p = 0.349). Similar results were found after stratification by the year of diagnosis, race/ethnicity, and histology.

Additional CLNB is not associated with an inferior survival outcome in NPC. Our study provides a reference for the clinical practice of NPC.