Neoadjuvant chemotherapy followed by concurrent chemoradiotherapy with or without nimotuzumab in the treatment of locally advanced nasopharyngeal carcinoma: a retrospective study

Purpose: We aimed to investigate the efficacy and side effects of concurrent chemoradiotherapy, with or without nimotuzumab, for the treatment of locally advanced nasopharyngeal carcinoma after neoadjuvant chemotherapy. Methods This study retrospectively enrolled 109 patients with NPC from our hospital from July 2019 to May 2021.All patients were treated with TPF neoadjuvant chemotherapy for 2 cycles, and concurrent chemoradiotherapy was performed 2 weeks after chemotherapy. According to whether nimotuzumab was added in concurrent chemoradiotherapy, they were divided into the nimotuzumab group and the control group, with 52 cases in the nimotuzumab group and 57 cases in the control group.The efficacy and adverse reactions of the two groups were retrospectively analyzed. Results The objective remission and complete remission rates in the nimotuzumab and control groups were 100% vs 98.2% (p = 1.000), and 92.3% vs 78.9% (p = 0.049), respectively. The 3-year distant metastasis-free survival of the nimotuzumab and control groups was 91.6% and 77.3% (p = 0.047), respectively.The 3-year progression-free survival, locoregional relapse-free survival, and overall survival of the nimotuzumab and control groups were 87.6% vs 75.5% (p = 0.110), 90.5% vs 86.9% (p = 0.566), and 94.5% vs 87.1% (p = 0.295), respectively. In the nimotuzumab group, subgroup analysis showed that patients aged < 60 years (hazard ratio [HR] = 0.350, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.131–0.934, p = 0.036) and those with a granulocyte-to-lymphocyte ratio (grain/lymph ratio) ≤ 4 (HR = 0.365, 95% CI: 0.144–0.923, p = 0.033) achieved a better result. Additionally, multivariate analysis demonstrated that grain/lymph ratio was an independent risk factor for disease progression (HR = 7.485, p = 0.012) and distant metastasis (HR = 17.540, p = 0.009). Conclusion The concurrent chemoradiotherapy plus nimotuzumab after neoadjuvant chemotherapy for locally advanced nasopharyngeal carcinoma achieved a higher complete remission rate and significantly improved distant metastasis-free survival compared with concurrent chemoradiotherapy alone. Additionally, an increasing trend was observed in progression-free survival, and the incidence of side effects was similar in both groups.