RESUMEN
<p><b>OBJECTIVE</b>To evaluate the treatment modalities and the prognostic factors of nasal cavity carcinoma.</p><p><b>METHODS</b>A retrospective study was done on 60 nasal cavity carcinoma patients treated from 1985 to 1992. Thirty-four patients received radiotherapy alone and 26 patients received surgery plus radiotherapy. Kaplan-Meier method was used to evaluate the survival, Log-rank test to assess the difference between these two groups and Cox proportional hazard model by multivariate analysis.</p><p><b>RESULTS</b>The overall 5- and 10-year survival rates were 55.9% and 36.9% respectively. The 5- and 10-year survival rates were 79.0% and 57.9% in patients with early lesions (stage I, II) and 44.1% and 26.0% in patients with advanced lesions (stage III, IV) (P = 0.005). There was no significant difference in the survival rate between radiotherapy alone and radiotherapy plus surgery (P = 0.33). Patients with squamous cell carcinoma had obviously poorer survival rate than patients with adenocarcinoma (P = 0.04). Patients with positive nodes had a lower survival rate compared with negative node patients (P = 0.09).</p><p><b>CONCLUSION</b>Histological type and clinical stage, but not method of treatment or neck node metastasis, are the important prognostic factors.</p>