OBJECTIVETo determine the value of concurrent chemoradiotherapy in patients with locoregionally advanced nasopharyngeal carcinoma from the mainland of China.

METHODSData were extracted from randomized trials comparing chemotherapy plus radiotherapy with radiotherapy alone in locally advanced nasopharyngeal carcinoma. Actuarial rates of survival and distant metastases were calculated. The followed electronic databases were searched the Chinese Biomedicine database, Pubmed, Medline, Embase and Cochrane library; Data were extracted by tow reviewers and Review manager 4.1 software was applied for statistical analysis.

RESULTSEighteen trials with 1993 patients were include according to the including criterion. The 3-year overall survival rate of the chemoradiotherapy group and the radiotherapy group were 68.47% and 56.38% respectively, and the 5-year overall survival rate of the two groups above were 51.91% and 41.09% respectively, while the distant metastases rate of the chemoradiotherapy group and the radiotherapy group were 26.19% and 38.71% respectively. The result demonstrated that chemoradiotherapy increased overall survival by 12% at 3 years, and 11% at 5 years after treatment. After chemoradiotherapy, the rate of distant metastasis was reduce by 12%.

CONCLUSIONSIn patients with locoregionally advanced nasopharyngeal carcinoma, chemoradiotherapy significantly improves overall survival at 3 years, and 5 years compared with radiotherapy alone.