Treatment of choice in nasopharyngeal carcinoma

NASOPHARYNGEAL CANCER TREATMENT :- 1. Radiotherapy:- It is the treatment of choice for nasopharyngeal cancer. Stage I and II are treated by radiotherapy alone while stage III and IV require concomitant radiation and chemotherapy or radiation followed by chemotherapy. External beam radiation of 6000-7000 cGy can be delivered by linear accelerator to the primary and both sides of neck. More advanced techniques of radiotherapy such as three-dimensional conformal radiotherapy and intensity modulated radiotherapy (IM) are now being used more and more. They allow higher dose delivery to the tumour with reduced damage to the adjacent normal structures such as spinal cord, brainstem and parotid glands. IM has also been used for recurrent disease where conventional radiotherapy produces more serious side effects such as transverse myelitis. Ref:- Dhingra; pg num:-252