Does nasopharyngeal carcinoma require targeted therapy?

Does nasopharyngeal carcinoma require targeted therapy?

1. Due to the hidden anatomical location of the nasopharynx, the early symptoms of nasopharyngeal carcinoma are atypical, and diagnosis is easily delayed clinically, so special vigilance should be exercised.

2. Since most nasopharyngeal carcinomas are poorly differentiated squamous cell carcinomas, radiotherapy is the first choice for treatment, and 60Co or linear accelerator high-energy radiotherapy is often used. The 5-year survival rate of radiotherapy is about 45%.

Local recurrence and metastasis after radiotherapy for NPC are the main causes of death. Therefore, for some patients who have received 60-70 Gy of external radiation therapy and still have residual local lesions, intracavitary afterloading therapy can be used. Targeted therapy can also be used for NPC.

3. More and more molecular targeted drugs are used in combined radiotherapy for nasopharyngeal carcinoma, which can specifically block the signal transduction pathways that play a key role in the growth of tumor cells. While killing tumor cells, they reduce the impact on normal cells and improve the patient's radiotherapy survival rate and quality of life.

Epidermal growth factor receptor EGFR is overexpressed in 95% to 100% of head and neck tumors and has become an important target for targeted therapy of head and neck tumors. The EGFR monoclonal antibody inhibitor cetuximab erbitux has been approved by the FDA as a drug that can be combined with radiotherapy and chemotherapy to treat patients with head and neck tumors for the first time.

The results of domestic Phase III clinical trials show that the targeted treatment of nasopharyngeal carcinoma with cetuximab combined with concurrent chemoradiotherapy has improved the local control rate of nasopharyngeal carcinoma patients to 99% without increasing toxic and side effects.