Nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) is endemic in Southern China, Southeast Asia, the Arctic, and mid-East/North Africa. NPC prevalence is reported to be highest in southern China, where an average of 80 cases per 100,000 population are reported each year. It is both radiosensitive and chemosensitive. The National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) guidelines (version 1, 2013), have recommended use of concurrent chemoradiotherapy (CCRT) with or without adjuvant chemotherapy (AC) as standard treatment for NPC.~Recently, the technique of IMRT has become widely used in the treatment of nasopharyngeal carcinoma. The preliminary results showed that IMRT might improve the rate of local control and the quality of life in NPC. In a retrospective study (Ivan,2010), the result showed that IMRT without concurrent chemotherapy provides good outcome for patients with stage IIB NPC with acceptable toxicity. Another study showed that Comparing with IMRT alone, IMRT in combination with chemotherapy provided no significant benefit to locoregionally advanced NPC (Su,2011). With IMRT, it was unclear whether the additional of concurrent chemotherapy was essential for stage II nasopharyngeal carcinoma.~The investigators designed the present study to research the role of adding concurrent chemotherapy to intensity modulated radiotherapy in the treatment of stage II NPC. The primary endpoint is failure-free survival (FFS).The second endpoints were overall survival (OS),loco-regional failure-free survival (LFFS), distant metastasis failure-free survival (DMFS), and acute and late adverse events.
The study is designed to compare Intensity Modulated Radiotherapy (IMRT) in combination with concurrent chemotherapy and IMRT alone in treatment of stage II nasopharyngeal carcinoma.