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Background Whether hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection poses risk to patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) in the intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) era remains unclear. Methods 953 patients with non-metastatic, newly diagnosed NPC who received detection of serologic hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) and treated with IMRT were retrospectively reviewed. 171 patients had HBV infection (HBsAg seropositive). Propensity score matching method (PSM) and stabilized inverse probability of treatment weighting (IPTW) were used to address confounding. The survival rates were evaluated by Kaplan-Meier analysis and the survival curves were compared by Log-rank test. Prognostic factors were explored by multivariate analysis. Results No significant survival differences were observed between HBsAg-negative group and HBsAg-positive group [5-year overall survival (OS), 87.7% vs. 83.9%, P=0.181; locoregional recurrence-free survival (LRFS), 83.5% vs. 78.3%, P=0.109; distant metastasis-free survival (DMFS), 80.2% vs. 77.9%, P=0.446; progression-free survival (PFS), 77.4% vs. 71.4%, P=0.153], consistent with the results of PSM and IPTW analysis. Further analyses revealed that HBV infection was an independent prognostic factor for poor OS [multivariate analysis; hazard ratio (HR), 3.74; 95% confidence interval (CI), 1.45–9.68; P=0.006], LRFS (HR, 2.86; 95% CI, 1.37–5.95); P=0.005] in patients with stage N1, DMFS (HR, 2.65; 95% CI, 1.15–6.09; P=0.022) and PFS (HR, 2.63; 95% CI, 1.34–5.14; P=0.005). Among HBsAg-positive patients, liver protection improved OS (90.3% vs. 77.2%; P=0.022). Conclusions HBV infection is an independent risk factor for patients with stage N1 NPC in the IMRT era. Hepatic protection may benefit the survival of HBsAg-positive patients.

Purpose: Investigating surrogate endpoints shortening the time of therapeutic evaluation in nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) after radical treatment. Patients and Methods: We retrospectively analyzed 830 patients receiving intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT) from 2008 to 2010 and being stratified by the 8th edition of UICC/AJCC staging system and the plasma Epstein-Barr virus DNA (EBV DNA). The annual rates of overall survival (OS), progression-free survival (PFS), loco-regional recurrence-free survival (LRFS), and distant metastasis-free survival (DMFS) were sequentially calculated using the life table and compared by the McNemar method. Results: The time of shortening therapeutic evaluation by surrogate endpoints: OS, PFS, LRFS and DMFS could be shortened to 1-year (100% vs 100%, P=1) in patients with stage I; OS, PFS, LRFS and DMFS could be shortened to 3-year (96.9% vs 96.1%, P = 1; 94.6% vs 92.2%, P = 0.125; 96.9% vs 95.3%, P = 0.5) and 4-year (92.2% vs 91.2%, P = 0.125) in stage II; In the high EBV DNA group , OS and DMFS could be shortened to 1-year (100% vs 100%, P = 1;100% vs 100%, P = 0.25) in stage II; OS and PFS could be shortened to 3-year (94.3% vs 91.4%, P = 1;82.9% vs 74.3%, P = 0.25) in stage III; OS could be shortened to 4-year (75% vs 72.7%, P = 1) in stage IVA. Conclusions: The time of therapeutic evaluation could be shortened to

Distant metastasis is the leading cause of death in patients with N2-3 nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC). And aspirin is found to reduce metastasis and improve prognosis in some other malignancies, such as colorectal cancer. This study aimed to evaluate the clinical value of regular aspirin intake (RAI) in N2-3 NPC treated with standard chemoradiotherapy.Totally 2064 patients diagnosed with TxN2-3M0 NPC from Jan. 2008 to Dec. 2015 and treated with neoadjuvant chemotherapy followed by concurrent chemoradiotherapy were involved. According to RAI, these patients were divided into 2 groups between which a propensity score matching was made, with a ratio of 1:3 and a series of clinical characteristics (age, gender, T stage, N stage and EBV DNA) as covariates. Then survivals and acute toxicities were compared in the 464 matched patients.RAI appeared to bring better overall (87.7% vs. 79.6%, P = 0.031), metastasis-free (87.8% vs. 76.5%, P = 0.017) and disease-free (85.9% vs. 75.5%, P = 0.033) survivals. It simultaneously increased total incidences of myelosuppression (55.2% vs. 32.2%, P 0.001), oral mucositis (60.3% vs. 38.2%, P 0.001), cervical dermatitis (60.3% vs. 38.5%, P 0.001) and xerostomia (49.1% vs. 33.3%, P = 0.002). But RAI failed to affect incidence of any grade 3/4 toxicity.Post-diagnosis RAI might be a tolerable approach to control distant metastasis and provide survival benefit for N2-3 NPC in combination with standard chemoradiotherapy.

Rationale: Refractory nasopharyngeal carcinoma is challenging to treat and at present there is no standard treatment or any good choice. Patient concerns: Although the three patients in our case reports had already underwent multiple treatments before, they still suffered from disease recurrence of nasopharyngeal carcinoma. Diagnosis: They were diagnosed as refractory nasopharyngeal carcinoma. Interventions: A continuous infusion of Endostar, an antiangiogenic agent, combined with chemotherapy and radiation therapy was given to treat the patients. Outcomes: Patients showed complete or partial response to the combined therapy as evidenced by regression of tumors and decrease in plasma Epstein–Barr virus (EBV) DNA load. Lessons: Continuous infusions of Endostar in combination with chemotherapy and/or radiation therapy showed promising efficacy and safety. The combination therapy indicates a new approach to treat refractory nasopharyngeal carcinoma.

Background Whether PD-L1/PD-1 expression plays a significant role in the prognosis of NPC is still controversial. The present study mainly aimed to investigate the prognostic significance of PD-L1/PD-1 expression in patients with NPC. Methods A systematical research was performed in the PubMed, Web of Science, EMBASE, and the Cochrane Library databases up to January 06, 2019. Eighteen studies met eligible criteria were included in the meta-analysis. Quality assessment of included articles was evaluated by Newcastle–Ottawa quality assessment scale (NOS). Pooled hazard ratios (HRs) and their corresponding 95% confidence intervals (95% CIs) were used to elucidated the primary endpoint, overall survival (OS), and the secondary endpoints. Furthermore, the relationship between clinicopathological features of NPC and PD-L1/PD-1 expression was estimated by relative ratios (RRs) and 95% CIs. Results A total of 1836 patients from 15 included studies concerning PD-L1 and 678 patients from six studies regarding PD-1 were included in the meta-analysis. Pooled results revealed that PD-L1 expression in NPC did not correlate with OS (HR 1.34 95% CI 0.93–1.93, p = 0.11), DFS (HR 1.82, 95% CI 0.86–3.85, p = 0.12), PFS (HR 1.19, 95% CI 0.46–3.08, p = 0.72), and DMFS (HR 2.26, 95% CI 0.60–8.56, p = 0.23). Meanwhile, no statistically significant differences existed between the expression level of PD-1 in tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TILs) and the OS in NPC, with the pooled HR 1.29 (95% CI 0.68–2.42, p = 0.44). In subgroup analysis, higher expression of PD-L1 in immune cells correlated with better OS in patients with NPC, with a pooled HR 0.68 (95% CI 0.47–0.99, p = 0.04). Among the clinicopathological features included in our study, we found that the positive expression of PD-L1 in NPC associated with the higher expression of PD-1 (RR 1.25, 95% CI 1.02–1.52, p = 0.03). Conclusions Our meta-analysis indicated that higher/positive expression of PD-L1/PD-1 may not serve as suitable biomarkers for the prognosis of NPC, which was not in consistent with some previous studies about the prognostic value of PD-L1/PD-1 in other types of tumors. Despite the positive results in subgroup analysis and study about clinicopathological features, it may still need corroboration of prospective and large-scale studies. Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (10.1186/s12935-019-0863-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Chronic inflammation plays an important role in tumor progression. The aim of this analysis was to evaluate whether inflammatory biomarkers such as the Glasgow prognostic score (GPS), the neutrophil‐lymphocyte ratio (NLR), the platelet‐lymphocyte ratio (PLR), and the lymphocyte‐monocyte ratio (LMR) could predict the prognosis of nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC). In this analysis, pretreatment GPS, NLR, PLR, LMR of 388 patients who were diagnosed as nonmetastatic NPC and recruited prospectively in the 863 Program No. 2006AA02Z4B4 were assessed. Of those, the 249 cases enrolled between December 27th 2006 and July 31st 2011 were defined as the development set. The rest 139 cases enrolled between August 1st 2011 and July 31st 2013 were defined as the validation set. The variables above were analyzed in the development set, together with age, gender, Karnofsky performance score, T stage, and N stage, with respect to their impact on the disease‐specific survival (DSS) through a univariate analysis. The candidate prognostic factors then underwent a multivariate analysis. A nomogram was established to predict the DSS, by involving the independent prognostic factors. Its predction capacity was evaluated through calculating Harrell's concordance index (C‐index) in the validation set. After multivariate analysis for the development set, age (≤50 vs. >50 years old), T stage (T1–2 vs. T3–4), N stage (N0–1 vs. N2–3) and pretreatment GPS (0 vs. 1–2), NLR (≤2.5 vs. >2.5), LMR (≤2.35 vs. >2.35) were independent prognostic factors of DSS (P values were 0.002, 0.008

Background With the improved overall survival (OS) of nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) patients, the importance of quality of life (QoL) is increasingly being recognized. For some radiosensitive NPC patients, whether low-dose radiotherapy can improve the QoL without affecting clinical efficacy is unknown. This study aimed to assess the survival rates and QoL of NPC patients treated with 50 Gy radiotherapy plus hematoporphyrin derivative (HPD). Methods Forty-six newly diagnosed NPC patients treated with 50 Gy radiotherapy plus HPD between June 1988 and July 1992 were analyzed. All patients were restaged according to the 7th edition of the American Joint Committee on Cancer staging system. The radiotherapy plan was designed on the basis of pretreatment computed tomography. The OS, local recurrence-free survival (LRFS), distant metastasis-free survival (DMFS), and disease-free survival (DFS) rates were estimated using the Kaplan–Meier method. QoL was assessed using the Late Radiation Morbidity Scoring Criteria of the Radiation Therapy Oncology Group. Results The 5-year OS, LRFS, DMFS, and DFS rates were 74.3%, 72.6%, 82.1%, and 61.2%, respectively. The corresponding 10-year rates were 38.4%, 62.9%, 78.5%, and 49.8%, respectively, and the 20-year rates were 27.7%, 51.4%, 78.5%, and 40.7%, respectively. None of the patients developed severe radiation-related complications, such as radiation-induced temporal lobe necrosis, hearing loss, trismus, and dysphagia. Conclusion Some NPC patients were sensitive to 50 Gy radiotherapy plus HPD, and this sensitivity was characterized by long-term survival without significant late treatment morbidities.

Background The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between pretreatment nutritional status and prognosis of nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC). Methods Pretreatment nutritional status was evaluated by ideal body weight percentile (IBW%) and serum albumin for 512 patients with NPC who underwent radical radiotherapy. Kaplan–Meier methods, log-rank test, and a Cox model were applied for survival analysis. Results Before radiotherapy, IBW%

BACKGROUND Chromosome 9 open reading frame 86 (C9orf86) is a novel subfamily of GTPases. Previous studies have implicated C9orf86 as a potential oncogene. METHODS C9orf86 expression was detected in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) cell lines and human bronchial epithelial (16HBE) cell lines by RT-PCR and western blotting. Immunohistochemistry (IHC) was used to detect 180 consecutive NSCLC specimens and 16 normal lung tissues. The correlation between C9orf86 expression and clinicopathological parameters was evaluated. Kaplan-Meier survival analysis and Cox hazards ratio models were used to estimate the effect of C9orf86 expression on survival. RESULTS C9orf86 was expressed in the cytoplasm in 74 of 180 (41.11%) NSCLC specimens. In clinical pathology analysis, C9orf86 expression significantly correlated with lymph node metastasis and clinical stage significantly (P

The purpose of the present study was to investigate alternative endpoints to the 5-year overall survival (OS) and locoregional control (LRC) for nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC). A total of 2,450 NPC patients were enrolled in this study, including 1,842 patients treated with two-dimensional (2D) radiotherapy (RT), 451 treated with 3D conformal RT (CRT) and 157 treated with intensity-modulated RT (IMRT). We sequentially calculated the 1-, 2-, 3- and 4-year survival rates using a life table and compared these with the 5-year survival rate using the McNemar method, with the survival rate of the last indifferent comparison being considered as the alternative endpoint. For 2D RT, stage I patients exhibited similar survival rates at 1 and 5 years (98.9 vs. 94.4%, respectively; P=0.125 for both OS and LRC); stage N3 patients exhibited similar 4-year OS (55.2 vs. 53.5%; P=1.000) and 2-year LRC (78.3 vs. 71.2%; P=0.125) to the 5-year OS and LRC. For IMRT, the 1-, 2-, 3-, 4- and 5-year OS and LRC rates in stage I/II NPC patients were 100, 98, 96, 94 and 94% for OS and 100, 98, 96, 96 and 96% for LRC, respectively. No significant differences were observed for all the comparisons. For stage III/IV NPC patients treated with IMRT, the 1-, 2-, 3-, 4- and 5-year rates were 99.1, 96.3, 92.5, 88.8 and 85.0% for OS and 98.1, 97.2, 95.3, 90.7 and 89.7% for LRC, respectively. Only the 4-year OS and LRC rates were indifferent from those at 5 years (P=0.125 for OS and P=1.00 for LRC). In conclusion, the 1-year OS and LRC for stage I NPC patients treated with 2D RT or stage I/II NPC patients treated with IMRT, the 4-year OS and 2-year LRC for stage N3 NPC patients treated with 2D RT and the 4-year OS and LRC for stage III/IV NPC patients treated with IMRT were determined as the alternative endpoints to the 5-year OS and LRC for NPC patients.

Aurora-A kinase (Aur-A), a member of a family of mitotic serine/threonine kinases, is known to be amplified in epithelial malignancies. In this study, we focused our investigation on Aur-A expression and its prognostic significance in nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC). Immunohistochemical staining for Aur-A was performed on the paraffin sections of 208 patients with NPC. Data were subjected to statistical analysis with respect to clinicopathological variables, overall survival and disease-free survival. An immunohistochemical analysis showed that Aur-A was highly expressed in 132 (63.5%) of the 208 NPC tissues examined. Aur-A expression was significantly correlated with T classification (P=0.012), clinical stage (P=0.003) and skull base invasion (P=0.003). Statistical analysis showed that Aur-A expression was inversely correlated with the 10-year overall and disease-free survival rates of NPC patients. Results of the multivariate analysis revealed that Aur-A expression was an independent prognostic indicator for patient survival. More significantly, Aur-A was found to be a marker for poor survival, which was mainly attributed to its high expression in the subgroup of T(4) tumor classification with aggressive local invasion. These results indicated that Aur-A expression is inversely correlated with survival and directly correlated with the malignant status of NPC. Therefore, Aur-A may serve as a potential biological marker for poor prognosis in the T(4) subgroup of patients.

Purpose To investigate the effect of hemoglobin (Hb) concentration and the difference in its decrease during treatment on outcome of radiotherapy (RT) alone for patients with Stage I and II nasopharyngeal carcinoma. Methods and Materials A total of 572 patients with Stage I-II nasopharyngeal carcinoma with RT alone between January 2001 and December 2004 were retrospectively analyzed. Patient characteristics, tumor variables, and Hb level, including pre-RT Hb, mid-RT Hb, and dynamic change of Hb between pre- and post- RT and its difference in decrease (▵Hb) were subjected to univariate and multivariable analysis to identify factors that predict disease-specific survival (DSS), local regional recurrence-free survival (LRFS), and metastases-free survival (MFS). Results The 5-year DSS was poorer in the Hb continuous decrease group than in the Hb noncontinuous decrease group (84% vs. 89%; p = 0.008). There was poorer 5-year DSS in patients with ▵Hb of >11.5 g/L than in those with ▵Hb of ≤11.5 g/L (82% vs. 89%; p = 0.001), and poorer LRFS (79% vs. 83%; p = 0.035). Univariate and multivariate analysis showed that Hb decrease difference with greater than 11.5 g/L was an independent prognostic factor for DSS and LRFS. Conclusions The difference in decrease of Hb level during the course of radiation treatment appeared as a poor prognostic factor in Stage I and II nasopharyngeal carcinoma patients.