Retropharyngeal nodal metastasis related to higher rate of distant metastasis in patients with N0 and N1 nasopharyngeal cancer.

BACKGROUND

Retropharyngeal lymph node (RLN) staging in nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) can be controversial.

METHODS

We retrospectively reviewed all patients with T(2-4), N(0-1) NPC treated between 1992 and 1994 to examine if RLN metastasis resulted in an increased incidence of distant metastases.

RESULTS

Of the 667 patients with NPC, 395 had T(2-4), N(0-1) disease, 140 had N(0), and 255 had N(1). All had staging CT scans and were treated with radiotherapy. Median follow-up was 8.3 years. Seventy-four percent showed undifferentiated histology. In this cohort, 187 (47%) had RLN metastases. Multivariate analysis showed that RLN conferred a higher hazard for distant metastasis (p = .04). Using the Kaplan-Meier method, patients with N(0) disease and RLN had a similar hazard for distant metastases as patients with N(1) disease when compared with patients with N(0) disease and without RLN.

CONCLUSION

Patients with N(0) disease and RLN appear to share a similar prognosis to patients with N(1) disease.