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Clinical Outcomes and Prognostic Factors of Locally Advanced Nasopharyngeal Cancer Treated with Intensity Modulated Radiotherapy: First Experience Report from Northeast India

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Abstract

The aim is to retrospectively evaluate the clinical outcomes and prognostic factors in patients of locally advanced nasopharyngeal cancer (NPC) treated with intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT). The northeastern states report relatively more NPC cases in comparison to other states of India. This study is an attempt to assess the treatment outcomes and prognostic factors of locally advanced NPC who had been treated with definitive radiotherapy with or without chemotherapy in our institute from 2012 to 2016 using IMRT. This is a single institutional retrospective study. Thirty-one consecutive patients of locally advanced NPC treated with definitive chemoradiation using the IMRT technique between 2012 to 2016 were evaluated. The survival was analyzed using Kaplan–Meir method and their relations with various clinicopathologic parameters were compared. After a median follow-up time of 36 months, the 5-year overall survival (OS) and disease-free survival (DFS) was 47.3% and 26.1% respectively. The younger patients of < 50 years had improved OS (p = 0.05). Patients of stage IVA had inferior 5-year OS (p = 0.1) and 5-years DFS (0.02) than those of stage III. The patients who received neoadjuvant chemotherapy showed improved DFS at 5 years (p = 0.09). The treatment-related toxicities were within acceptable limit. This retrospective analysis has reported outcomes of locally advanced NPC patients treated with IMRT with concurrent chemotherapy when IMRT was first introduced in our institute. This is the first of its kind from the Northeastern region of India.

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This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Radiation Oncology, Dr B Borooah Cancer Institute, Guwahati, Assam, 781016, India

    Gautam Sarma, Moumita Paul, Jyotiman Nath, Partha Pratim Medhi, Mouchumee Bhattacharyya & Apurba Kumar Kalita

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  1. Gautam Sarma
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  2. Moumita Paul
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Correspondence to Jyotiman Nath.

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The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

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The study was approved by Institutional Ethics Committee; BBCI Medical Ethics Committee (Registration No: ECR/1040/Inst/AS/2018).

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Sarma, G., Paul, M., Nath, J. et al. Clinical Outcomes and Prognostic Factors of Locally Advanced Nasopharyngeal Cancer Treated with Intensity Modulated Radiotherapy: First Experience Report from Northeast India. Indian J Otolaryngol Head Neck Surg 74 (Suppl 3), 5964–5973 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12070-021-02653-2

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