Chemo-radiotherapy versus radiotherapy alone for nasopharyngeal carcinoma: A meta-analysis of 78 randomized controlled trials (RCTs) from English and non-English databases

5522 Background: To obtain the best estimate for survival benefits of chemo-radiotherapy (CT + RT) compared with radiotherapy alone (RT) in nasopharyngeal cancer (NPC) and to evaluate the optimal timing of CT Methods: Datasources: 10 English language databases, 6 Chinese, including hand searching 26 Chinese Oncology Journals, 3 Korean, 2 Japanese, 1 African and 1 South East Asian databases. The Cochrane search strategy was used. Study Selection: Published reports or abstracts of RCTs comparing CT + RT versus RT for newly diagnosed NPC. Data Extraction: 2 reviewers independently extracted data and scored for trial quality.Where available, authors were contacted for actual number of events. Quality Scores: 2 points for randomization, 1 for completeness of follow up and 1 for intention-to-treat analysis (score range 0–4) Results: Data Synthesis: 101 RCTs were identified, 88 from Chinese and 13 from English language. 78 RCTs (9279 pts) reported 2 year or longer survival with characteristics as follows: median...