Clinical characters of aged nasopharyngeal carcinoma patients

BACKGROUND OBJECTIVE: The influence of age on treatment outcome and survival of nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) patients has seldom been reported. This study was to explore the clinical characters of aged NPC patients. METHODS: A total of 754 patients with histopathologically proven NPC from Jan. 1, 2000 to May 1, 2002 were divided to adult group (60 years old, 647 patients) and aged group (≥60 years old, 107 patients). The difference of disease characters, treatment patterns, and other complications between these two groups were analyzed. The influence of age on survival was analyzed with COX regression model. RESULTS: There was no difference between the two groups in disease characters, radiation dose, and interval time. However, the proportion of the patients received chemotherapy was significantly larger in adult group than in aged group (254/647 vs. 29/107, P=0.016), while the occurrence of complications was more frequent in aged group than in adult group (40/107 vs. 19/647, P0.001). The 3-year tumor-specific survival rate was significantly lower in aged group than in adult group (72.90% vs. 82.95%, P=0.010). COX multivariable analysis showed that age and '92 Fuzhou N stage were independent prognostic factors, and the odds ratio (OR) of age was 1.604 (95% CI: 0.929-2.768) (P=0.026). CONCLUSIONS: Aged NPC patients have worse 3-year survival than adult patients, which may be related to the high risk of chemotherapy and less possibility to tolerate enough doses and cycles. But age itself is still a poor prognostic factor when excluding the influence of chemotherapy.