Anti-EGFR targeted therapy delivered before versus during radiotherapy in locoregionally advanced nasopharyngeal carcinoma: a big-data, intelligence platform-based analysis

BACKGROUND: Little is known about the prognostic difference of anti-EGFR therapy, cetuximab (CTX) or nimotuzumab (NTZ), concurrently with induction chemotherapy (IC, investigational arm) or RT (control arm) for patients with locoregionally advanced nasopharyngeal carcinoma (LA-NPC). We conducted this retrospective study to address this. METHODS: We identified 296 patients with newly diagnosed LA-NPC at Sun Yat-Sen University Cancer Center between January 2012 and May 2015. Patients were treated by IC with CCRT or RT and CTX/NTZ was delivered during IC or radiotherapy. Survival outcomes and toxicities between different arms were compared. RESULTS: In total, there were 149 patients in the investigational arm and 147 in control arm. The 3-year disease-free survival, overall survival, distant metastasis-free survival and locoregional relapse-free survival rates for investigational arm vs. control arm were 84.3% vs. 74.3% (P = 0.027), 94.0% vs. 92.1% (P = 0.673), 88.0% vs. 81.8% (P = 0.147) and 93.3% vs. 88.0% (P = 0.093). Multivariate analysis revealed patients in the control arm achieved significantly worse disease-free survival (HR, 1.497; 95% CI, 1.016–2.206; P = 0.026) compared with those in the investigational arm; however, no significant difference was identified for other endpoints. Patients in the investigational arm experienced more grade 3–4 skin reaction (15.4% vs. 2.0%, P < 0.001) and mucositis (10.1% vs. 3.4%, P = 0.022) during induction phase, but less skin reaction (5.4% vs. 25.9%, P < 0.001) and mucositis (24.8% vs. 36.7%, P = 0.026) during RT. CONCLUSIONS: Our findings suggested that CTX/NTZ concurrently with IC may be a more effective and promising strategy for patients with LA-NPC receiving intensity-modulated radiotherapy. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s12885-018-4268-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.