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Efficacy of concurrent chemoradiotherapy combined with nimotuzumab in the treatment of nasopharyngeal carcinoma with cervical lymph node metastasis

  • Head and Neck
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European Archives of Oto-Rhino-Laryngology Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Objectives

First, we retrospectively compared the clinical efficacy of concurrent chemoradiotherapy combined with nimotuzumab vs. chemoradiotherapy alone in patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) and cervical lymph node metastasis. Second, we analyzed the value of Ki-67 as a predictor of nimotuzumab efficacy.

Methods

From January 2012 to December 2019, 1250 patients with cervical lymph node metastasis eligible for enrollment were included, of whom 383 were treated with concurrent chemoradiotherapy combined with nimotuzumab (targeted therapy group), and 867 were treated with concurrent chemoradiotherapy (CRT group). A total of 381 pairs of patients were matched using 1:1 propensity score matching, and differences in clinical prognosis were compared between the two groups.

Results

Overall survival (OS) (P = 0.028), disease-free survival (DFS) (P = 0.040), and distant metastasis-free survival (DMFS) (P = 0.040) were better in the targeted therapy compared to the CRT group. Multivariate analysis revealed that clinical staging, chemotherapy, and nimotuzumab therapy were predictors of OS and DFS. In the targeted therapy group, patients with ≥ 50% Ki-67 positivity had better OS and DFS rates than those with < 50% Ki-67 positivity.

Conclusions

In patients with stage N1–3 NPC and lymph node metastasis, the addition of nimotuzumab to concurrent chemoradiotherapy may provide additional survival benefits. Ki-67 is a potential biomarker with clinical predictive value for the efficacy of nimotuzumab combined with chemoradiotherapy.

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Data availability

The data sets generated during the current study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

This research was funded by the Guangxi Science and Technology Base and Talent Project (GuiKe-AD20297069), Guangxi Medical and Health Appropriate Technology Development and Application Project (S2020070), and the Open Research Project of Key Laboratory of Early Prevention and Treatment for Regional High Frequency Tumor (Guangxi Medical University), Ministry of Education/Guangxi Key Laboratory of Early Prevention and Treatment for Regional High Frequency Tumor (GKE-KF202206), National Natural Science Foundation of China (U22A2024).

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Author notes

  1. Jinlong Lu, Jiazhang Wei and Xin Xiao contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Otolaryngology and Head and Neck, The People’s Hospital of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, Nanning, 530021, China

    Jinlong Lu, Jiazhang Wei, Yunzhong Wei, Min Li, Weiming Deng, Hanwei Wang, Zhi Gui, He Jiang, Jintao Zhang, Jingjin Weng & Shenhong Qu

  2. Institute of Oncology, Guangxi Academy of Medical Sciences, Nanning, 530021, China

    Jiazhang Wei & Shenhong Qu

  3. Center for Optometry and Visual Science, The People’s Hospital of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, Nanning, 530021, China

    Xin Xiao

  4. Department of Scientific Research, The People’s Hospital of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, Nanning, 530021, China

    Xin Xiao

  5. Department of Pathology, The People’s Hospital of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, Nanning, 530021, China

    Yongta Huang

  6. Research Center of Medical Sciences, The People’s Hospital of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, Nanning, 530021, China

    Fei Liu

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  1. Jinlong Lu
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Contributions

Conceptualization: JW and SQ; methodology: JL, JW and JW; formal analysis and investigation: JL, JW, XX, YW, ML, YH, WD, HW, ZG, FL, HJ, JZ, JW; writing—original draft preparation: JL, JW and JW; writing—review and editing: JW, JW and SQ; funding acquisition: JW, JW and SQ; resources: JW and SQ; supervision: JW and SQ.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Jingjin Weng or Shenhong Qu.

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The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Ethical approval

The protocol of our study was reviewed and approved by the ethics committee of the People’s Hospital of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.

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The study adhered to the ethical principles of the Declaration of Helsinki. Written informed consent to be enrolled in this study was provided.

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Lu, J., Wei, J., Xiao, X. et al. Efficacy of concurrent chemoradiotherapy combined with nimotuzumab in the treatment of nasopharyngeal carcinoma with cervical lymph node metastasis. Eur Arch Otorhinolaryngol 280, 2479–2488 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00405-022-07805-w

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