Radiotherapeutic management of carcinoma of the nasopharynx: An analysis of 170 patients

A study of 170 patients with carcinoma of the nasopharynx was made. Aggressive radiation therapy remains the treatment of choice. The overall 5-year survival was 39% and the disease-free rate 31%. For patients with T1N0 lesions, 69% lived for 5 or more years, and 58% had no disease at 5 years. Patients with unilateral nodal disease had a 5-year survival rate of 38% and a disease-free rate of 31%. Those with extensive local disease and/or with bilateral or fixed cervical nodes generally had a poor prognosis. This study seems to indicate that there have been some radio-therapeutic advances in the past 15 years. Improvements in prognosis were observed in patients with unilateral nodal disease (N1 group) and with massive soft-tissue disease (T3), and a slight improvement was noted in patients with very early lesions (T1No group) and those with far-advanced nodal lesions (N2, N3 group).