Promising treatment outcomes of intensity-modulated radiation therapy for nasopharyngeal carcinoma patients with N0 disease according to the seventh edition of the AJCC staging system

摘要

BackgroundIntensity-modulated radiation therapy (IMRT) provides excellent locoregional control for nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC), and has gradually replaced two-dimensional conventional radiotherapy as the first-line radiotherapy technique. Furthermore, in the new seventh edition of the American Joint Committee on Cancer (AJCC) staging system, retropharyngeal lymph nodes were upgraded from N0 to N1 disease as a result of their negative impact on the distant metastasis-free survival (DMFS) rates of NPC. This retrospective study was conducted in order to review the treatment outcomes and patterns of failure in NPC patients with N0 disease after IMRT in order to effectively guide treatment in the future.