Locoregional extension and patterns of failure for nasopharyngeal carcinoma with intracranial extension

IMRT has been accepted as the standard treatment technique of nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) [1]. Clinical target volume (CTV) delineation is the key point in local tumor control and normal tissue protection. Although the CTV definitions are different in different centers, the 5-year local recurrence-free survival (LFFS) for NPC after IMRT is about 90% and the late toxicities are well tolerable [2 –4]. However, radiotherapy of NPC with intracranial extension is technically challenging. In the study of 70 patients with T4 classification NPC after IMRT, 16 patients developed local failure, the images of 2 patients with only local failure were lost, 7 were in-field failure; the other 7 were ma rginal failure.

Source: Oral Oncology - February 20, 2018 Category: Cancer & Oncology Authors: Caineng Cao, Feng Jiang, Qifeng Jin, Ting Jin, Shuang Huang, Qiaoying Hu, Yuanyuan Chen, Yongfeng Piao, Yonghong Hua, Xinglai Feng, Xiaozhong Chen Source Type: research