Association between Pretreatment Serum High-density Lipoprotein Cholesterol and Treatment Outcomes in Patients with Locoregionally Advanced Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma Treated with Chemoradiotherapy: Findings from a Randomised Trial

Background: To investigate the relationship between the pretreatment serum lipid concentrations and the clinical outcomes in patients with locoregionally advanced nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) who were treated with a combination of chemotherapy and radiotherapy. Methods: From August 2002 to April 2005, 400 patients with stage III or stage IVa nasopharyngeal carcinoma were recruited for a randomised clinical trial of induction chemotherapy combined with radiotherapy or concurrent chemoradiotherapy. Pretreatment serum lipid concentrations were examined in 342 patients. Both univariate and multivariate analyses were conducted to investigate the association of serum lipid levels with different treatment outcomes. Results: The 5-year failure-free survival rate for the low- high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) and high-HDL-C groups was 52.1% and 65.5%, respectively (p=0.017), and the 5-year overall survival rate was 64.7% and 72.5%, respectively (p=0.094). The pretreatment serum level of HDL-C was a favourable prognostic factor of overall survival and failure-free survival in a Cox regression model with HR 0.65 (95% CI 0.43-0.97; p=0.036) and 0.60 (95% CI 0.41-0.88; p =0.008). No significant correlation was observed between the prognosis of patients with NPC and serum levels of total cholesterol (TC), triglyceride (TG), or low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C). Conclusions: The pretreatment serum level of HDL-C was an independent prognostic factor for patients with locoregionally advanced nasopharyngeal carcinoma who were treated with chemoradiotherapy.