Palliative chemotherapy in carcinoma nasopharynx

INTRODUCTION: Nasopharyngeal carcinoma is a rare malignancy. We conducted an audit of systemic therapies received in palliative setting in carcinoma nasopharynx and studied their outcomes. METHODS: Patients who underwent first-line palliative systemic chemotherapy between January 2014 and April 2017 for carcinoma nasopharynx at the department of medical oncology at authors’ institute were selected for this analysis. Toxicities, responses, progression-free survival (PFS), and overall survival (OS) were analyzed. In addition, a Quality-Adjusted Time without Symptoms or Toxicity analysis with threshold utility analysis was performed. RESULTS: Fifty-one patients were included in this analysis. The indication of palliative chemotherapy was locoregionally recurrent disease in 25 (49.0%) patients and metastatic disease in 26 (51.0%) patients. The overall response rate was 62.0% (n = 33). The median PFS was 225 days (95% confidence interval [CI]: 164–274 days) and median OS was 513 days (95% CI: 286–931 days). The restricted mean TOX state duration was 2.6 days (95% CI: 0.3–4.9), restricted mean TWiST duration was 219.2 days (95% CI: 184.0–254.4), and restricted mean REL duration was 74.3 days (95% CI: 38.1–110.4). CONCLUSION: Systemic cytotoxic therapy in nasopharyngeal cancers is associated with high response rates and clinically meaningful PFS; with low duration of time spent in adverse events.