Clinical features and prognostic factors in patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma relapse after primary treatment.

NasopharyngealCarcinoma (NPC) relapse after primary treatment is a major cause of cancer-related death. There is little comprehensive information on long-termoutcomes particularly pertaining to the site of relapse.Therefore, the aim of this study was to determine the clinicopathologic features of NPCrelapse after primary treatment from 1425 patients referred to our institution from 2000 until 2006. After initial treatment, patients were reviewed at 3-6 month intervals. Information was collected on demographics, pre- and post-management and patient outcomes. The median age was 48 years(range 3-77 years) with complete data for 82% of patients. In total, 152 patients (13%) had a local relapse and 193 patients (16.5%) had a distant relapse. Among patients with distant metastasis, the most common site of first relapse was bone (in 56 patients), followed by multiple organ involvement (50), lung (37) and liver (30). The median interval from primary treatment until recurrence was 28 months and disease-free intervals correlated to survival (p < 0.0001). If a relapse occurred, the 3-year survival was 51% for local recurrence and 29.2% for distant recurrence (p < 0.0001). There were four dominant prognostic variables that predicted the patient's clinical course: (1) Stage of patient’s cancer (p = 0.008), (2) remission duration (≦24 months vs. >24 months, p = 0.043), (3) the location of the metastases (local recurrence vs. distant recurrence, p = 0.043) and (4) n...
Source: Head and Neck Oncology - Category: Cancer & Oncology Source Type: research