Background: Clinical research on the treatment of nasopharyngeal cancer (NPC) has been focused primarily on the reduction of incidence of the development of distant metastases as well as the improvement of locoregional control.
Patients and methods: Untreated patients with stage IIB-IVB nonmetastatic NPC were treated with three cycles of induction chemotherapy (IC) consisting of epirubicin 75 mg/m(2) followed by paclitaxel 175 mg/m(2) as 3-h infusion on day 1 and cisplatin 75 mg/m(2) on day 2 every 3 weeks, followed by concomitant radiation therapy (70 Gy), and chemotherapy (CCRT) with weekly paclitaxel 60 mg/m(2).
Results: From November 1999 until April 2003, 47 patients entered the study. Complete response rate post IC therapy was 15%, which was raised to 66% after the completion of CCRT. The most frequent side effect from IC was myelotoxicity (55%), whereas stomatitis and xerostomia were the most pronounced (grade 3, 4) toxicities during CCRT. The presence of Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) was detected either by in situ hybridization in tumor tissue sections or by polymerase chain reaction in the peripheral blood in 37 out of 46 patients tested (80%). All three histological types were associated with the presence of EBV. After a median follow-up of 23.5 months, median time to treatment failure was 17.9 months, whilst median survival has not been reached yet.
Conclusion: IC followed by CCRT is feasible and produces durable complete responses in the majority of patients with NPC. The case detection rate of EBV in this study appears to be similar to that reported from endemically infected regions.