Meta-analysis of concurrent chemoradiotherapy in the treatment of locoregionally advanced nasopharyngeal carcinoma.

BACKGROUND: With radiotherapy (RT) alone, the five-year overall survival (OS) rate for advanced nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) can only reach 40%, the ratio of distant metastasis (DM) is 36-40%. This meta-analysis was performed to compare the clinical efficacy of concurrent chemoradiotherapy (CCRT) with RT alone in the treatment of locoregionally advanced NPC. METHODS: The related literature were retrieved and reviewed by two independent investigators from the followed electronic databases: Review manager 5.3 software (Cochrane Collaboration, London, United Kingdom) was applied for statistical analysis. RESULTS: A total of 16 trials with 2576 patients were recruited according to the criterion. The odds ratios of 3 and 5 years OS was 0.53 (95% confidence interval [95% CI]: 0.44-0.64) and 0.58 (95% CI: 0.48-0.71), which confirmed the significant improvement of CCRT compared with RT alone (P < 0.001). CCRT also reduced the risk of locoregional control failure and DM in locoregionally advanced NPC patients. CONCLUSIONS: The results suggested that CCRT was more beneficial when compared with RT alone in locoregionally advanced NPC patients. Further study is needed to perform to confirm this effect.