© 2004 Foundation for Promotion of Cancer Research
A Multi-institutional Survey of the Effectiveness of Chemotherapy Combined with Radiotherapy for Patients with Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma
1 Division of Radiation Oncology, National Cancer Center Hospital East, Kashiwa, Chiba, 2 Department of Radiation Oncology, Aichi Cancer Center, Nagoya, 3 Department of Radiation Oncology, National Sapporo Hospital, Sapporo, 4 Department of Clinical Radiology, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, 5 Department of Radiation Oncology, University of the Ryukyus, Okinawa, 6 Department of Head and Neck Surgery, Miyagi Cancer Center, Sendai, 7 Department of Radiation Oncology, Nagasaki University, Nagasaki, 8 Department of Radiation Oncology, University of Yamanashi, Kofu, 9 Department of Radiology, Shinshu University, School of Medicine, Matsumoto, Nagano, 10 Department of Otolaryngology, Fukushima Medical University, Fukushima and 11 Department of Radiation Oncology, National Kure Medical Center, Kure, Hiroshima, Japan
For reprints and all correspondence: Mitsuhiko Kawashima, Division of Radiation Oncology, National Cancer Center Hospital East, 6-5-1, Kashiwanoha, Kashiwa, Chiba 277-8577, Japan. E-mail: mkawashi{at}east.ncc.go.jp
Received May 26, 2004; accepted August 16, 2004
Background: Previous randomized trials have shown a survival advantage of concurrent platinum-based chemoradiotherapy with or without adjuvant chemotherapy for advanced nasopharyngeal cancer. Applicability of these data to a Japanese population is an important issue which remains to be solved.
Methods: A retrospective survey of treatment of patients with nasopharyngeal cancer in 17 institutions in Japan was done with special reference to the relationship between the type of chemotherapy and survival outcome. Chemotherapy used was classified according to: (i) whether 
2 courses of platinum plus 5-fluorouracil (FP) was given; or (ii) whether platinum was administered concurrently with radiotherapy (RT). This resulted in three groups being produced consisting of (i)/(ii) = YES/YES, other miscellaneous (MISC) and RT alone.
Results: Of 333 evaluable replies, 67 patients (20%) corresponded to the YES/YES, 192 (58%) to the MISC and 74 (22%) to the RT alone group. The YES/YES group achieved a better overall survival than RT alone for patients with intermediate stage (T3N0 or T1–3N1, 81.9 versus 60.7% at 5 years, P = 0.042) and advanced stage (T4 or N2/3, 56.6 versus 31.5%, P = 0.017) disease. The MISC group achieved an almost identical survival rate to that in the YES/YES group for patients with intermediate stage disease (81.9% at 5 years, P = 0.968), whereas it was not significantly different from that of the RT alone group for patients with advanced stage disease (44.0%, P = 0.261).
Conclusion: The results of this survey mirrored the data from previous randomized trials for patients with intermediate and advanced stage nasopharyngeal cancer in Japan. However, confirmatory prospective trials are required to test the efficacy of less toxic approaches for patients with intermediate stage disease.
Key Words: nasopharyngeal cancer • radiotherapy • chemotherapy • survey
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