GUANGZHOU, Feb. 24 (Xinhua) -- Chinese scientists have improved the techniques used in re-irradiation for locally advanced recurrent nasopharyngeal carcinoma, in a bid to lower the toxicity to which patients are subjected, according to the Cancer Center of Sun Yat-sen University on Friday.
The findings have been published in the journal The Lancet.
Chen Mingyuan, one of the paper's authors, said that radiotherapy is the most critical radical treatment for nasopharyngeal carcinoma, but 10 to 20 percent of patients will have local recurrence after radiotherapy, and about 70 percent with recurrent nasopharyngeal carcinoma need to receive re-irradiation treatment.
The standard form of re-irradiation has great toxic and other side effects, and the curative effect is not good, according to Chen, with about 40 percent of patients eventually dying of substantial late toxicity.
In 2015, research teams based in south China's metropolis of Guangzhou used the hyperfractionation method in a phase-three trial, whereby patients were given radiotherapy twice daily with fewer doses compared to the original treatment of once a day with standard doses.
Patients receiving the hyperfractionated radiotherapy have a three-year overall survival rate of 74.6 percent compared to 55 percent for those undertaking the standard fractionation method.
In terms of long-term quality of life, patients using the hyperfractionation method have shown better results in terms of overall health status, role function, social function, pain, economic difficulties and loss of appetite. ■
