RATIONALE

1. In patients with nasopharyngeal carcinoma, there is sometimes a discrepancy between actual clinical outcome and TNM stages because it is an anatomy-based system in which functional factors are not concerned.
2. Hemoglobin, neutrophil to lymphocyte ratio and platelet count were proved to improve prognosis prediction of TNM staging system in our previous retrospective study.

PURPOSE To validate that the prognostic index based on complete blood count and TNM system had higher prediction efficiency on survival in nasopharyngeal carcinoma than TNM system alone.

Totally 720 patients with non-metastatic nasopharyngeal carcinoma will be include and will be divided into 3 groups (Low Risk, Intermediate Risk and High Risk Groups) according to their prognostic index, which is on basis of blood cell count indexes and TNM stage. The 3 groups of patients will undergo a radical radiotherapy or chemoradiotherapy and be followed until death or the end of the study. Comparison on survivals of the 3 groups will be made to validate the accuracy of the prognostic index. And comparison on prediction efficacy between prognostic index and TNM staging system will be made.

Inclusion Criteria:

• Nasopharyngeal cancer patients diagnosed by pathology or cytology
• UICC/AJCC 2010 Stage T1-4 N0-3 M0
• Male or female patients with age between 18 and 75 years old
• Karnofsky Performance Scores ≥ 60
• Expected survival ≥ 3 months
• Without dysfunction of heart, lung, liver, kidney and hematopoiesis

Exclusion Criteria:

• Karnofsky Performance Status Score < 70'
• Radiotherapy uncompleted (≥ 1 fraction missing)
• Distant metastases before or during radiotherapy
• Without weekly complete blood count during radiotherapy
• Application of colony stimulating factor such as erythropoietin
• Signs of infection before radiotherapy.

All the participants involved in our study are patients who are first diagnosed nasopharyngeal carcinoma pathologically and treated with radical radiotherapy or chemoradiotherapy in ourhospital from August 1st 2014 to July 31st 2015.