Long-Term Disease-Free Survival of a Patient with Oligometastatic Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma Treated with Radiotherapy Alone

Abstract

Distant metastases in nasopharyngeal carcinoma are fairly common. While the mainstay of treatment for metastatic nasopharyngeal carcinoma remains chemotherapy, it is now increasingly recognised that metastatic cases are a heterogenous group and can be stratified into oligometastatic cases versus those with widespread metastases, the former potentially benefiting more from local therapy. In this report, we describe a case of nasopharyngeal carcinoma with a solitary vertebral metastasis successfully treated with high-dose palliative radiotherapy alone, resulting in a long-term disease-free interval of more than 8 years at the time of writing. To our knowledge, this is the first report of a long-term survivor of metastatic nasopharyngeal carcinoma with oligometastatic bone disease who had received no chemotherapy. In view of this case, there may be potential for other patients with oligometastases from nasopharyngeal carcinoma to be treated solely with local therapy, thereby sparing them the toxicities of chemotherapy.

Keywords

• Nasopharyngeal carcinoma
• Metastasis
• Radiotherapy