Primary Concerns and Challenges in Treating Nasopharyngeal Cancers - Dissertation Example

IMRT based treatments with or without chemotherapy can lead to variations in morbidity rates. For example, one research studying the outcomes of the patients treated with one or both of the treatments studied the morbidity patterns based on overall survival, disease-free survival and disease-specific survival rates. During the first year, these rates were 83, 84 and 93% respectively (Liu et al, 2003, pp 503). At two years, the same patients demonstrated the patterns at 82, 74 and 88% respectively.

While at three years post-treatment, the same results were 82, 61 and 88% respectively. The research showed a strong correlation between the T-stage of cancer with the disease-free survival rates (Liu et al, 2003, pp 503). Disease-specific survival rates were primarily influenced by the cumulative dose of radiation to the tumour tissue itself (Liu et al, 2003, pp 504). The overall survival was very much dependant on the stage, the N classification and the cumulative dose to the primary tumor (Liu et al, 2003, 506).

This shows that nasopharyngeal cancers should not only be assessed on the basis of their anatomical location or spread, but also on the histopathological stages and findings as well.Initial studies learning outcomes of IMRT in nasopharyngeal carcinomas provided good statistics in overall morbidity rates of the patients. Of the 39 patients, the two-year follow-up showed a 97% local relapse-free survival rate, compared to 78% control that was achieved with previous methods without IMRT (Jeyakumar et al, 2006, pp 170).

Alongside, patients with sole radiation therapy are likely to show lesser morbidity rates of 46% compared to the 76% survival rates when treatment is carried out with radiotherapy, cisplatin, and 5-fluorouracil chemotherapy as well (Jeyakumar et al, 2006, pp 172). The initial researches on cisplatin use in NCP were limited mainly due to either a lesser number of patients in the research or due to the difference in the treatment protocols and treatment regimes. This made the true efficacy of cisplatin a matter of debate.