A SURVEY OF FACTORS AFFECTING THE PROGNOSIS OF NASOPHARYNGEAL CARCINOMA

An analysis has been made to evaluate the factors affecting the prognosis of 796 patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC), treated in 1971. Better prognoses have been found in young patients and they were getting poorer with the increase of age. The 5-year survival rate in this series depended to some extent on the histo-pathologic type of the tumor, showing a higher survival rate for patients with vesicular-nuclear cell carcinoma than those with poorly differentiated squamous cell carcinoma. Gradual decrease of 5-year survival rate was seen from stage I to stage IV; the prognosis of patients with ascending (A) or descending (D) type of advanced NPC showed no significant difference, but a poor prognosis presented in patients with mixed (AD) type NPC. The 5-year survival rate was higher in patients with the tumor limited in nasopharynx (NP) cavity (T1 + T2), but lower in those with tumor exceeded the NP cavity (T3+T4). Concerning the metastasis, the 5-year survival rate of patients with unilateral cervical lymph node involvement was higher than that with bilateral involvement, and was decreasing in order of N1、 N2 and N3 stages. As for radiotherapy, 5000-7000 rad to the tumor in nasopharynx and 3500-5500 rad to the cervical lymph nodes was the optimal dose.