Nasopharyngeal carcinoma in childhood: long-term results of 32 patients

Purpose: To evaluate treatment results and prognostic factors, pediatric pa tients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma were reviewed. Materials and methods: Thirty-two patients at the age of 16 and younger wer e treated for nasopharyngeal carcinoma. One patient had WHO type I, 15 had WHO type II, and 14 had WHO type III histology. All patients were treated w ith radiotherapy, median dose to nasopharynx and involved nodes was 70 Gy ( range 60-70.4 Gy), three patients received intracavitary booster dose of 24 Gy in three fractions, 12 patients were also given from two to four course s of platinum based neo-adjuvant chemotherapy. Results: Twenty-three patients are alive and well with a median follow-up o f 107 months. Ten and 15 years loco-regional control (LRC) and overall surv ival (OS) rates were 82.5, 68.7 and 72.7, 62.4%, respectively. Patient age, size of the lymph node and prolongation of overall external radiotherapy t ime were found to be the prognostic factors in univariate analysis, however the only factor remained significant after multivariate analysis was the s ize of the lymph node on LRC. Almost all long-term survivors experienced mo derate to severe complications yielding complication free survival rate of 10.9% at 15 years. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd. All rights reserv ed.