Comparison of chemoradiotherapy with radiotherapy alone for early-stage extranodal natural killer/T-cell lymphoma, nasal type in elderly patients

Abstract

It remains controversial whether concurrent or subsequent chemoradiotherapy (CRT) provides additional survival benefits when compared to radiotherapy (RT) alone in localized extranodal natural killer/T-cell lymphoma (ENKTL), nasal type We identified 248 patients from the US National Cancer Data Base who were diagnosed with localized ENKTL from 2004–2014; 68.9% received CRT and 31.1% received RT alone. Over time, the use of CRT increased, while the use of RT alone decreased (p < .001). On multivariate analysis, CRT was associated with longer OS than RT alone (HR: 0.504; 95% CI: 0.338–0.751; p < .001), while uninsured status and African–American race were associated with shorter OS. The survival advantages of CRT over RT alone persisted on propensity score matching for the entire cohort (p = .0014) and in a subgroup analysis of elderly patients (p < .001). In conclusion, patients who received CRT had significantly longer OS than those who received RT alone. These results also apply to elderly patients.

Keywords:

• Extranodal natural killer/T-cell lymphoma, nasal type
• treatment
• chemoradiotherapy
• radiotherapy
• the National Cancer Database
• elderly patients