• Ugur Selek, Enis Ozyar, Gokhan Ozyigit, Ali Varan, Munevver Buyukpamukcu, and I Lale Atahan.
• Department of Radiation Oncology, Hacettepe University School of Medicine, 06100 Sihhiye, Ankara, Turkey.
• Int. J. Pediatr. Otorhinolaryngol. 2005 Feb 1; 69 (2): 201-7.

PurposeTo evaluate the outcome of patients Materials And MethodsWe performed a database search maintained by the Department of Radiation Oncology of Hacettepe University School of Medicine for patients with nasopharyngeal cancer who were ResultsThe median follow-up time for all patients was 46 months (range, 1-111 months). While only 3 patients (5%) developed local recurrence (1/21 T3 and 2/9 T4 patients), 13 patients (22%) developed distant metastases (6/35 N1 and 2 and 7/17 N3 patients). None of the patients had regional failure. Four patients (6.7%) died due to the treatment related toxicity. The actuarial 5-year local control (LC), regional control (RC), distant metastasis-free survival (DMFS) and disease-free survival (DFS) rates were 96%, 100%, 76.5%, and 74.5%, respectively. The actuarial 5-year disease-specific survival (DSS) was 70.6%. DFS at 5 years is significantly longer in patients aged <16 years than ones >17 (90.5% versus 64.7%; p=0.02). Patients aged <16 years had longer 5 year DMFS (90.5% versus 67.7%; p=0.05) with a borderline significance. DMFS is significantly shorter in patients initially presented with N3 disease compared to N0-2 disease (58.8% versus 84.4%; p=0.04).ConclusionsWe suggest that RT combined with multiagent chemotherapy is effective in achieving satisfactory DFS and comparable OS in young patients with NPC. Results of both previous series and ours are evoking the necessity of early administration of efficient chemotherapeutic agents in addition to radiotherapy, but indistinct is the precise regimen and the intensity along the radiotherapy. All efforts towards decreasing late side effects of treatment should be encouraged in this long life expected group.

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