METHODS: This retrospective study covered all NPC patients who underwent radical IMRT treatment at the Penang General Hospital from June 2011 to February 2012. Patients of any age and stage of disease with histologically proven diagnosis were included. Information was collected on patient demographics, clinical stage, treatment received, including any neoadjuvant and/or concurrent chemotherapy, acute toxity and completion of IMRT within the OTT.
RESULTS: A total of 26 NPC patients were treated with IMRT during the study period; 88.5% had stage III/IV disease. 45.2% received neo-adjuvant chemotherapy while 50.0% were given concurrent chemo-irradiation. All patients completed the treatment and 92.3% within the 7 weeks OTT. Xerostomia was present in all patients with 92.3% having grade 2. Severe grade III/IV acute toxicity occurred in 73.1% of patients, the commonest of which was oral mucositis (57.6%). This was followed by dysphagia which occurred in 53.8%, skin reactions in 42.3% and weight loss in 19.2%. However, haematological toxicity was mild with only one patient having leucopaenia.
CONCLUSION: IMRT treatment for NPC is feasible in our center. More importantly, it can be delivered within the 7 weeks OTT in the majority of patients. Severe grade 3/4 toxicity is very common (73.1%) and thus maximal nutritional and analgesic support is required throughout the treatment.
METHODS: This is an observational retrospective study carried out in a general hospital on 117 solid tumor patients who admitted between January 2003 to December 2006. The main statistical tests used were Chi- square test and Fisher' s Exact test. The significance of the result will be when the P<0.05, while the confidence interval for this study was 95%.
RESULTS: The highest chemotherapeutic regimen was (5-FU+epirubicin+cyclophosphamide) (47, 40.2%) followed by (gemcitabine+cisplatin) (6, 5.1%) and many others. Majority of the patients receive their chemotherapy schedule of administration was one day schedule (90, 76.9%) followed by more than one day schedule (27, 23.1%).
CONCLUSION: The doses of these drugs were not high enough to produce a sufficient pharmacological effect to cause bone marrow suppression and lead to neutropenia. Besides the schedule of administration for each drug was long enough to overcome neutropenia also the high uses of granulocyte colony stimulation factor (G-CSF) which will play a major role in reducing the time and severity of neutropenia. All these factors play an important role in giving non- significant association between neutropenia onset and severity with chemotherapeutics drugs and their schedule of administration.