The surgical treatment of failure in cervical lymph nodes after radiotherapy for nasopharyngeal carcinoma:an analysis of 83 patients / 中华放射肿瘤学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To analyze the results of neck dissection in patients who failed in cervical lymph nodes after radiotherapy for nasopharyngeal carcinoma.Methods Eighty-three patients who received neck dissection due to lymph node persistence or recurrence after definitive radiotherapy were analyzed retrospectively according to the following relevant factors age, sex, the interval between completion of radiotherapy and surgery, rN stage, postoperative radiotherapy given or not, the adjacent tissues involved or not and the number of positive nodes. Kaplan-Meier method, Log-rank method and Cox method were used in the statistical analysis.Results The 1-, 3- and 5-year overall survival rates were 80.7%, 47.1% and 34.9%. The interval between completion of radiotherapy and surgery, postoperative radiotherapy given or not, the adjacent tissues involved or not were significantly prognostic factors in statistic analysis. Conclusions Neck dissection can be applied in the management of cervical lymph node failure in nasopharyngeal carcinoma after radiotherapy. Postoperative radiotherapy should be considered in patients with capsular invasion and/or adjacent tissue involvement.