To estimate the long-term survival, late toxicity profile, and quality of life of patients with locoregionally advanced nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) treated with combined induction chemotherapy (IC) and concurrent chemoradiotherapy (CCRT) from a clinical trial focused on reducing the target volume of intensity-modulated radiotherapy (IMRT).

This prospective, randomized clinical trial was conducted across six Chinese hospitals and included 212 patients with stage III-IVB NPC, who were randomly allocated a pre-IC or post-IC group. Eligible patients were treated with two cycles of IC+CCRT. All patients underwent radical IMRT. Gross tumor volumes of the nasopharynx were delineated according to pre-IC and post-IC tumor extent in the pre-IC and post-IC groups, respectively.

After a median follow-up of 98.4 months, 32/97 (32.9%) and 33/115 (28.7%) patients experienced treatment failure or died in the pre-IC and post-IC groups, respectively. None of the patients developed grade 4 late toxicity. Late radiation-induced toxicity predominantly manifested as grade 1-2 subcutaneous fibrosis, hearing loss, tinnitus, and xerostomia, whereas grade 3 late toxicity included xerostomia and hearing loss. The 5-year estimated overall, progression-free, locoregional recurrence-free, and distant metastasis-free survival rate in the pre-IC and post-IC groups were 78.2% vs. 83.3%, 72.0% vs. 78.1%, 90.2% vs. 93.5%, and 78.1% vs. 82.1%, respectively. The pre-IC group had a significantly higher incidence of xerostomia and hearing damage than the post-IC group. In terms of quality of life, compared to the pre-IC group, the post-IC group showed significant improvement in cognitive function (p=0.045) and symptoms including dry mouth (p=0.004), sticky saliva (p=0.047), and feeling ill (p=0.041).

After long-term follow-up, we confirmed that reducing the target volumes of IMRT after IC in locoregionally advanced NPC showed no inferiority in terms of the risk of locoregional relapse and potentially improved quality of life and alleviated late toxicity.