Epstein-Barr virus-related antibody. Changes in titers after therapy for nasopharyngeal carcinoma.

Using long-term follow-up data from a prospective, collaborative study of 182 North American patients, we evaluated the significance of various serologic tests for antibody to Epstein-Barr virus in predicting outcome after treatment in patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma. We restudied these patients by examining repeated measurements of each titer at various times after diagnosis and treatment. We looked for associations between trends of titers, measured as the slope of log(titer) against time, and titer level, measured as the mean of log(titer), with the outcome: alive and no evidence of disease; alive with recurrence; or dead of nasopharyngeal carcinoma. We found that posttreatment sequential measurements do not predict outcome.