Study of 45 cases of nasopharyngeal carcinoma with dermatomyositis

The authors have conducted a study of 61 cases of nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) with dermatomyositis (DM) admitted to the hospital between April 1964 and May 1989 and accounting for 0.027% (61/226, 183) of all the malignant tumors at the hospital and 0.086% (61/70,899) of the nasopharyngeal carcinoma cases, during that time period. We have analyzed 45 cases with complete data, using equal number of age-, sex-, and stage-matched cases with only NPC as control. The findings show a 5- and 10-year survival rate and distant metastatic rate of 50.4, 34.5, and 40.5% respectively, for NPC with DM, and 57.8, 55.2, and 56.5% for controls. The results indicated that the radiotherapy with prednisone treatment not only is quite effective but also will not result in a significantly increased rate of distant metastasis.