Dynamic observation of EB virus DNA load before and after the treatment in patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma and its clinical significance / 临床耳鼻咽喉头颈外科杂志

ABSTRACT

OBJECTIVE@#Dynamic observation of Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) DNA load before and after the treatment in patients with Nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC), predicting the incidence of distant metastasis and offering more personalised choice of therapies.@*METHOD@#Fifty-four cases of patients with NPC were taken by fluorescence quantitative PCR assay of EBV DNA load before and after the treatment, all patients were followed up according to plan and carried out the progression-free survival (PFS) and overall survival (OS).@*RESULT@#EBV DNA load in plasma of patients with NPC can partly reflect the clinical characteristics of patients; EBV DNA load in some patients with distant metastasis was higher than those patients with continuous remission when they were not started treatment (P < 0.05); For those patients whose EBV DNA copies were lower than 20,000 copies/mI before the treatment, the progression-free survival and overall survival rates were higher than those high expression patients, and the difference were statistically significant (PF < 0.01 and P < 0.05).@*CONCLUSION@#The EBV DNA load in the plasma of NPC patients can partly predict the occurrence of distant metastases before treatment.