Journal of the National Cancer Institute
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J. Natl. Cancer Inst. · Aug 2010
Randomized Controlled TrialRandomized trial of radiotherapy plus concurrent-adjuvant chemotherapy vs radiotherapy alone for regionally advanced nasopharyngeal carcinoma.
Current practice of adding concurrent-adjuvant chemotherapy to radiotherapy (CRT) for treating advanced nasopharyngeal carcinoma is based on the Intergroup-0099 Study published in 1998. However, the outcome for the radiotherapy-alone (RT) group in that trial was substantially poorer than those in other trials, and there were no data on late toxicities. Verification of the long-term therapeutic index of this regimen is needed. ⋯ Adding concurrent-adjuvant chemotherapy statistically significantly reduced failure and cancer-specific deaths when compared with radiotherapy alone. Although there was no statistically significant increase in major late toxicity, increase in noncancer deaths narrowed the resultant gain in overall survival.